It was Wednesday 6th of March when I got a positive pregnancy test. I remembered shouting with a joyful energy, “it says positive” and my husband and I had the most comforting and warm hug, probably it felt similar to the one when we got married. After losing my mother, I’ve struggled to believe in my luck but meeting my husband challenged that narrative and this news seemed that they were doing the same.
However, after 24 hours things started feeling strange. I read that some bleeding is normal during pregnancy but something did not feel right. Throughout the days, I also started having abdominal pain on my left side.
I came across the websites of the Ectopic Pregnancy Trust and the Miscarriage Association, and said to myself, “this is what I’ve got.” The pain wasn’t unbearable, but it was there so I was booked for an early scan, however, I had to wait for ten days because it was too soon to see something.
After a week, the pain got worse and I went to A&E. I was treated like an anxious wreck but I also understood that I wasn’t an emergency. They did some observations and I saw a lot of blood that stunned me. I was told to spend the night there because of being in pain but then, I was told to leave. I asked if I could stay because I was scared of a rupture and I slept on a chair.
Two doctors said, “it doesn’t look ectopic” and that my “pregnancy hormone was high” (I later found out that it was 105 on that date, which is very low), but they couldn’t scan me because they didn’t have sonographers on Fridays. I was told that this blood and pain could be part of being pregnant, an early miscarriage or an ectopic pregnancy. Everything was possible at this stage.
Three days later, I had my scan and nothing was found but hormones were still hovering in the 100s. I asked the consultant again, “is this ectopic?” “No, I don’t think so,” she said. I felt that I was going mad. I had a strong instinct that this was a left side ectopic pregnancy but my situation was labelled as Pregnancy of Unknown Location.
We had a trip planned for a few days, the doctor signed me off and said to do a pregnancy test in two weeks. It felt like having a ticking time bomb on the left side of my body. I read up on ectopic cases to try to bring some sanity to my potential madness but reading was also having a detrimental effect on my mental health. Not knowing what was going on in my body felt like one of the most challenging experiences of my life. I was in an unknown country with a pregnancy that had an unknown location.
The pain started getting worse so we decided to come back earlier and I was still faintly positive. I was angry that I couldn’t even enjoy our trip, and started thinking that I was cursed. We landed and went back to A&E as I felt the pain was increasing and I saw a male doctor who helped me calm down. The hormone dropped. He recognised his limitations but at least he didn’t treat me like a loopy and gave me dihydrocodeine for the pain.
I contacted the EPU again, this was my fifth blood test in two weeks. I was mentally and physically exhausted. A nurse said to me, “mira tus brazos,” meaning look at your arms in Spanish because they were pin cushions. We had a long conversation in our native language and she gave me a hug. She had my mum’s name, it felt that my mamá sent me this person from the stars to look after me.
My hormone was still under the 100s but I kept getting mixed messages like, “it’s unlikely that it will rupture” and also, “it can certainly rupture,” and they still couldn’t confirm the diagnosis. I got tired of this lack of clarity and this waiting game took a toll on me. The doctor told me to come back in a week for another scan but I begged her to book me in sooner as I was in pain and the hormone wasn’t going down. My Latin side came out very strongly and she ended up booking me for a scan with the Lead of the Pregnancy Unit in 48 hours.
She confirmed a 9mm mass on my left side and said that the hormone was going down so I was put on Expectant Management. I said to her, “I knew it,” with a broken voice. The fear of rupture felt very present so I asked her twice if she was sure of doing this. My brother kindly booked me an online consultation with a doctor from back home to get a second opinion, and he agreed with this ‘conservative approach’ so that relaxed me (a bit).
Before I went to bed, I would say to myself every day, “I made it through today.” I was just surviving.
I was told to get a blood test after a week to monitor the hormone levels. After a few days, the pain started to get worse but I was told that it can be because of the pregnancy resolving itself. My mind struggled to assess the severity of the pain and I was also losing patience. I got scared as I felt a strong pain in my abdomen in the afternoon and a dull pain on my left shoulder. The whole arm felt numb and I had pins and needles so I was admitted in the gynaecology ward for a night.
The hormones were going down but the size of the mass was still the same. The sonographer told me that “it should be reduced by now” but confirmed no internal bleeding nor rupture. After talking to a doctor, they said that it takes time for the mass to reabsorb (sometimes weeks or even months).
Once again, I struggled to deal with these mixed messages but in the midst of this chaos, I saw a familiar face and it was the same nurse again which felt really comforting. She said that she has been following my case, and those words made me emotional.
After two days, my levels were negative. When the doctor said “the ectopic pregnancy is finished,” I burst into tears. Five weeks and three days of living in a nightmare. I was so grateful that I was physically safe and that I had both tubes but I knew that my emotional recovery would take time.
It was incredibly hard to find stories of successful expectant management which made me feel even more lonely.
I suffer from IBS so everything got so messy on my abdominal area that I couldn’t understand what was actually going on. Waiting was the only option.
Freedom can sometimes feel like an illusion but my love for my husband was the only thing that gave me hope. I would always be forever grateful to my friends in the UK and from back home, my brothers, my therapist, and of course, my partner and my mum’s love. I’m here writing this thanks to their support and care.
I only hope that my story can help other women to feel a little bit less lonely as reading others helped me to go through one of the most difficult experiences in my life.
I don’t know if this end does it justice, but I’m truly amazed by the woman’s body.
