The "M" word you never want to hear!

I have debated with myself for almost a week now whether to write this blog or not. When something so personal happens to you its a toss up-to share or not to share? After countless hours on google trying to find some sort of personal story I could relate to and coming up short every time...I finally decided I needed to share my story for others like myself.

(disclaimer-in order to provide accurate information for those of you who come across my blog in your searching, I am not sparing any details due to "too much information-tmi" When something so serious as this subject happens, you want to know all the details.)

November 16th I got a little + sign on probably the 8th pee stick I had purchased. My husband and I had decided to start trying for baby #2 so we were ecstatic to see that sign! We told our really close friends and family and told them to keep quiet until we went to the dr.

November 22nd I was packing our family up to head to my parents for the Thanksgiving week when I suddenly felt like I had pee'd my pants! I rushed to the bathroom and found brown discharge in my underwear and also when I wiped. I did not have ANY of this with my first child so naturally I freaked out! I called my dr office and unfortunately she was already out on vacation :-/ great I thought!! So the nurse scheduled an appt for me with the dr filling in for her. Now at this point based on my last period date I should have been 6wks4dys pregnant. I anxiously drove myself to my dr appt expecting to see that things were fine and this was just something that some pregnant women get (I had a couple of friends tell me they had this happen and everything was fine!) The dr did a sonogram and it only showed a super thick line-where the sac would develop. She said that I was probably much earlier than I thought, so not to worry, the brown discharge just might be implantation bleeding. She ordered labs to check my hcg level to see how far along I actually was. The only problem was that in order to check if the level was rising or "doubling" was to repeat the blood draw in 48hrs. Remember what I was doing earlier that day? Packing to head out of town!!!!! So yes, I had to wait over a WEEK to get blood drawn again to check on the pregnancy! Longest week of my life!

Dec 1st we drove home and I went straight to the lab to draw blood again to check the levels. I got the results and it showed that I was only 3wks pregnant as oppose to the 6wks I thought I was. At this point I just knew something was not right, but I tried to convince myself everything was fine.

From Dec1-Dec11 I had my levels tested 8x and with each time the level increased, but did not double. The levels should have been in the 2-3000 and my level was highest at 500. On the 9th test my level dropped into the 400's. At this point I knew my pregnancy was not going to make it.

Dec 12 my dr called me and told me what I already knew...I was going to miscarry. But still hearing those words "with your level not very high and not dropping, I'm so sorry to have to tell you you will miscarry" was the worst moment of my life thus far. Trying to keep myself together on the phone talking to my dr was extremely difficult. She told me I could wait for it to happen on its own, or I could take some medication to speed up the process. I decided on the medication because emotionally I could not just wait for it. I got off the phone and cried the hardest I have ever cried. I am naturally a crier-doesn't take much-but this was on a whole different level. My husband works from home and just happen to come out of his office as I was getting out of bed and saw my face. He instantly asked me what was wrong and all I could do is sob into his chest and say "miscarriage" in between sobs.
My dr called a couple of hours later and informed me I needed to go in and have a high tech ultrasound done to rule out anything suspicious. I arranged childcare for my son and to the dr we went. The ultrasound was yet again one of the hardest things I've done. Last time I had this done was to determine the sex of my first child. So as the Ultrasound Tech is searching for my pregnancy other women are laughing and squealing in the other rooms as they are finding out the sex of their child...all I could do is sob into my tissue! The tech kept apologizing over and over again and I felt bad for her, but could not manage to say anything! She finally finished and informed me that the pregnancy was "ectopic-outside of the uterus" and I was to call my dr right away.
I immediately remembered all the googling I had done (don't recommend this as it probably just freaked me out even more), but I remember ectopic being extremely dangerous! I called my dr and she said that it was in fact ectopic and the pregnancy was in my fallopian tube. She said that because the pregnancy was very small and already dying (heartbreaking to hear even still) that I would not need surgery (thank GOD) but that I needed to get an injection to "dissolve the pregnancy into a heavy period" WOW So my husband and I made our way to her office.
She came in and said how sorry she was and cue the waterworks. She explained the three options I had. Wait it out, get the injection, or d&c. I already knew that I couldn't just wait, and she said that the d&c would not be necessary, so injections it was! Physically they did not hurt, but emotionally it was extremely difficult. This injection called "methotrexate" is also administered to those wanting an abortion. The drug is also used in chemotherapy as its purpose is to attack rapidly growing cells and kill it off. Granted the dosage I was given is tiny compared to what chemo patients receive. During the injection process I think I was somewhat delirious. I was even joking with my husband saying "oh jeez, what if my hair falls out...OMG what if my eye brows fall off hahaha" The nurse kept saying how cute I was and how bad she felt-I'm pretty sure this just numbed me more.
I was given a ton of paperwork regarding this injection and the "what-to-do's" and sent on my way.

Dec 13th I expected to be bleeding all over the place and in a ton of pain. I wasn't until about 7pm. I usually get bad cramps with my periods so I expected normal period cramps. That is how they started out, so I popped some tylenol and heated up my heating pad...still no bleeding yet.

Dec 14th I had never experienced such excruciating cramps in all my life. They almost felt like labor contractions-but constant-no relief! Oh and did I mention that my husband had hurt his back/neck the prior week, and this day he had a terrible headache from it and was also in a lot of pain. Oh and did I also mention that my son decided to throw up and have diarrhea as well!? Yep Dec 14th was a fabulous day!! The cramping finally let up towards 7pm but the blood was still pretty heavy-but only when I sat on the toilet. Which was quite a lot since it felt better to sit there. I never really had a lot on the pads I had to wear-which is good.

Dec 15th I had to have blood drawn again to make sure my levels are going down. I am awaiting my dr.'s phone call to hear. And then every Wednesday I will have to repeat the blood test until my levels have returned to zero. When I get my level tested this Wednesday(18th), based on what the result from the draw is, I may or may not have to have a second injection. Praying I don't!!

The silver lining in all of this is that because I had my levels tested way back in November, my dr was able to see that this pregnancy was not progressing like it normally should. No damage was done to my fallopian tube. So word of advice to all my pregnant or future pregnant readers...please let your dr know if you have brown discharge or anything "out of the norm" such as bleeding, cramping, or pain of any kind. Thankfully I never had pain with this ectopic pregnancy.

I also just want to thank my close friends and family who knew about all of this. Your prayers and support have been so unbelievably wonderful during this time. I know that it will take time to heal, both physically and emotionally, so for now we are taking it one day at a time. We will never know why God decided to allow this to happen to us and that is ok. But what we do know is that God's timing is the best and His ways are not our ways.

God is good all the time and all the time God is good!