My Story

December 19th 2016, 6 months after my wedding day we found out that we were pregnant. We were so overjoyed, ecstatic and thrilled that we got pregnant quite quickly, like how it is portrayed in romantic sitcoms.

When I checked with my then doctor, I was assured that it was probably implantation bleeding and that I should not worry too much about it. However, my 6th sense started intensifying as days continued and the spotting was not stopping. And it came with some minor lower abdominal pains and discomfort as if I was on my periods. Every moment that was supposed to be filled with happiness and joy was overshadowed by fear and anxiety. And although this was my first pregnancy, I just felt something was not right…

Other than my husband and mom, I had also shared my pregnancy news with my two best friends who were also pregnant at the time, well one had just given birth a month before and the other one was 7 months pregnant and you could just imagine the excitement we shared. Knowing our kids would also be BFFs like we were.

The joy was short-lived, when I was woken up by a very sharp pain on the 30th December at 10:00 in the evening. I could not straighten up nor walk because of the pain. The pain literally paralyzed me and all I could do was move my arms. I remember trying to be calm whilst calling hubby from the lounge. His 9-year-old son, Oteng was visiting at a time and I did not want to alarm him. The pain however was intense and unbearable, I do not know how to even describe it. I had never in my 37 years ever felt such an excruciating pain. It did not feel like cramping the way you might expect with period pains. It was just like a sharp lump of pain and nothing could fix it. And all that was in my mind was, my baby…… I kept saying my baby…my baby…. something is wrong with my baby……and all I wanted to do was to protect my unborn child that I didn’t want to take anything for pain. After about 20 minutes of trying to get off the bed, I finally managed to go to the ladies, and after making no 2 the pain subsided. And I managed to fall asleep again or rather managed to close my eyes. When I told mama the following morning, she suspected an *ectopic pregnancy. Before that day I had never heard of that term in pregnancy and was not sure what it was or if it was something I could be experiencing.

*An ectopic pregnancy is one that grows outside the uterus (womb). Most often it would occur in a Fallopian tube. That pregnancy cannot be sustained. It can be life threatening to the pregnant woman if the tube ruptures before it is detected and the woman could bleed to death

On the 31st December 2016 whilst everyone was preparing for New Year’s Eve celebrations, hubby and I were on our way to the hospital to go find out what had caused that excruciating pain the night before. The drive was quiet and somber but somewhat hopeful that the issue could be fixed, and we would be home before Oteng even wakes up in order to prepare for New Years’ eve festivities.

Little did we know that we would spend the whole day in the hospital. The first 3 hours were spent moving from one consultation room to another to detect what was going on. The 1st doctor could not conclusively say what the problem was, the pee test confirmed the pregnancy. He then referred us for an ultrasound. The ultrasound technician looked around and around 🙄 and around 🙄. I already hated transvaginal ultrasounds (they are like curling rod twisting around your coochiiieee ohhh the discomfort) but the fact that this guy kept twisting it added to the fact that the spotting issue I had a week ago had turned into a light flow. So, all this experience was agonizing. After a few minutes of torture, the technician scribbled on a piece of paper and gave it to us to give to the 1st doctor who had referred us to him.

Which was such a futile exercise because he simply read the scribbled note, then referred us to another doctor🙄. The 2nd doctor stepped in after an hour or so of waiting for him and started doing his checks. After a few minutes of twisting, clicking and probing ze coochiiieee area again 🙄 he finally propped me up and sat close by my bedside and broke the news that he could not find a gestational sac in my uterus. Typically, by 5-6 weeks a transvaginal ultrasound would show a gestational sac...

“Unfortunately, it is an ectopic pregnancy, but the good news is your tube hasn’t ruptured.”

I kept asking myself if I should be happy, or relieved because my fallopian tube had not ruptured! But I was honestly crushed, mentally and physically. This is after 3 health care practitioners kept mum and moved me from one room to another with a straight face and showing no empathy at all 🥺. The next thing I knew, I was being told that I had to have a surgical procedure. A laparoscopic procedure would be carried out to remove the pregnancy before it became too large and could be life threatening to me.

“There must be a mistake, surely with this fast pace technology doctors could fix this. Is this procedure the only option? How can this be happening?” All these questions were complicated and with the quick timeline required by an ectopic pregnancy to avoid rupturing a fallopian tube (which along with impairing my fertility could also kill me) decisions had to be made fast.

Doctors know how to deal competently with removing ectopic pregnancies, but I don’t think they always know how to explain it to you, allow you a moment to grieve and help you feel empowered in the decision making process all in the timeframe that feels safe to them.

It was also hard to really take in all that information when you’re trying to understand how you went so quickly from being a pregnant woman to being a woman with a pregnancy that was not viable🤷🏾‍♀️? The procedure was scheduled for the 2nd January; however, I was advised if at any time I experienced the same excruciating pain I should rush back to the hospital. The sadness I felt was unlike any other. Why does pregnancy have to be so hard, and will the rest of my pregnancies be as hard for me? As a first-time mother of a child I was looking forward to, I held on to hope until the very last possible moment when I was going under (literally on the surgical bed). The procedure took less than an hour and it was done. All I kept thinking was that this was all a bad dream, and that I would wake up and still be pregnant.

That this was not happening to me. Yes, I only carried my precious baby for 6.5 weeks, but I believe that no matter how tiny the baby was, or how little time I carried them, that baby left such an imprint on my heart.