Conflicted

My beta finally hit 1, or negative as the clinic called it. Twice now I've had to follow my beta down after an ectopic and it was equally awful both times. Although this time I was finally smart enough to get my blood draws at a lab location that rarely sees pregnant women or children. I'm so over getting my blood drawn. I have crappy veins to begin with. Then add years and probably 100+ blood draws at this point and yea...blood draws suck. 

I did some research about repeat ectopics. Because I like to torture myself. The odds of having a second ectopic is 1/10. Which I obviously hit the crap end of those odds. The chance of a third ectopic jumps significantly to over 50%. And it's even higher if you had surgery to resolve your previous ectopic(s). Basically that's what happened this time. Sperm found the egg I ovulated on my tubeless left side and the fertilized egg had no where else to go so it decided to settle in on the outside of my uterus. 

So I'm almost guaranteeing myself another ectopic if I were to get pregnant naturally. The science literature recommends IVF for repeat ectopic patients, however, my first ectopic was from an IVF cycle, so where the hell does that leave me??? 

Logically and from a medical standpoint it would be advised I don't ever try for pregnancy again as the odds are not in my favor. Even if an ectopic was caught early, it wouldn't prevent having a 5th!! laparoscopic surgery. 

Emotionally...it's not that easy....

From the second I held my daughter in my arms I knew I wanted to be pregnant again. I wanted to grow another human and care for and raise another child. Prior to infertility I saw myself having 3-4 kids. It goes without saying I know how blessed I am to have my daughter. Wanting a sibling for her doesn't take away from how much she means to us - quite the opposite - we love her so much we want more than anything to give her a sibling.

But...my daughter almost lost her mom. You don't realize how much becoming a parent changes your way of thinking. I almost died and instead of thinking about it from a self perspective my focus has always been more about what almost happened to my daughter - what she almost lost - the thought makes me sick to my stomach every. single. time. 

I recently had a follow up with my internal medicine Doctor (so someone who does not do any OB) and asked him his thoughts. He's been in practice for 30 years and I respect his opinions. We had quite the conversation and his ultimate conclusion was what happened to me is as close as it gets to losing your life and that maybe we just hold on to what we already have in life - one beautiful and healthy child with both her parents alive and well. 

I'm just so conflicted. In hindsight we should probably have had my right tube removed during surgery. Then my uterus would have been completely sealed off making IVF a relatively safe option. But being the emergency it was there wasn't time for those kind of thoughts or decisions. I could decide to have my right tube removed now, but of course that would mean surgery. And it would permanently remove the option of a natural pregnancy. And for some reason the thought of that makes me really really sad - even though I know how dangerous another natural pregnancy could be. I also can't even begin to think about doing the logistics of IVF out of state again now that I have a child. 

It's all frustrating. And sad. So much sadness surrounding our limited options. I know we'll eventually make a decision. And someday I'll find time to grieve all the losses surrounding this ectopic. 

Conflicted...and sad...