After an Ectopic

Our situation still doesn't feel real to me. I'm beginning to think it never will.

And maybe that's okay.

TMI ahead...

We continued the PIO shots after surgery. Sadly, about four days after, I started bleeding. The next day I started passing clots and a lot more blood. We stopped the PIO shots at that point since it was obvious my body was already expelling my lining. Sadly, no miracle baby popping up in the uterus for us.Those first several days of shedding my lining were h-o-r-r-i-b-l-e. I would be resting in bed and suddenly feel a warm slimy sensation and would find a massive puddle of tissue and blood. If it's this bad after such an early point in pregnancy I don't think I want to know what it's like after giving birth.

Recovery has been about what should be expected. Part of me thought I should feel normal already. But then I remember that this was my third laprascopic surgery in five years and realize there is no way for me to be back to normal less than two weeks out. My boobs finally started getting the message and stopped hurting a few days ago. They're still bigger than normal. I had lots of hot flashes and night sweats the last week. I'm sure it's from my progesterone level dropping and probably my other hormone levels dropping as well. My poor butt is still a bit itchy and has red spots from the PIO. The pharmacy gave us needles that were too short the last time and so the PIO wasn't getting in deep enough. It gave me awful itchy rashes around the injection sites of my last several shots. My butt still hurts from the shots. It's still sore and occasionally has sharp stabbing pains. I wonder how long that will linger. Not fun at all.

My incisions are healing fairly well. Although, now I have an internal stitch poking out of each incision on my hips. The three incision sites are still tender to the touch, however, the bruising is finally starting to fade. Post-op I also had two red spots near my belly button. After a couple of days they scabbed over so we figured they must have been burn marks. I'll be asking about those at my follow-up since it's not something that should happen. I remember in recovery and back in my hospital room the nurses being concerned about those spots. I'm guessing the doctor will know more. Overall the swelling in my abdomen has gone down enough that I can finally button my pants. Although, I still leave them unbuttoned and hooked together with a hair tie since when they're buttoned it puts too much pressure on my belly when I'm sitting.

I have a repeat beta Monday. I got to skip one this last week since we were out of town. (I don't recommend going out of town for any reason in the week following surgery, but it was planned months in advanced and the doctor cleared me to go). I have to do them weekly until they're negative. Since I had my period and it's done now, I'm hoping I'll just have to do the one beta. My poor veins are getting so beat up. 

I'm going to wait until I have a normal cycle, then we'll do another mini-IVF banking cycle. Hopefully we will be ready for a retrieval by the end of May. We're down to four blasts, three of which are very poor quality. We will eventually transfer all the blasts we have, but obviously the poor quality ones don't have the best chance which is why we want to bank some more first. I'm guessing it will be the end of July or early August before we're ready to try another transfer. That seems like a very long time to me.

For now, I'm just taking it one day at a time.

p.s. (Fuck you to the stupid grocery store that still had St. Patrick's Day cards on display today. The holiday was two weeks ago and your evil reminder made me cry for two hours straight. Assholes.)

Close Call

The emotional shock has slowly been wearing off. The reality of our situation has been sinking in a little more each day. Two days ago it hit me how close we came to a very disastrous situation. I never had any obvious signs of an ectopic. No cramping, no bleeding, and no one-sided sharp pains. Had we not been monitoring this pregnancy with early ultrasounds there would not have been any warning of an impending rupture. When I finally went in for surgery the doctor said my tube was already starting to rupture - there was already bleeding going on. She was shocked I still wasn't having any symptoms. They even asked me on the OR table before I went under if I was having any symptoms and I wasn't. Makes a person think about the what-ifs....

I have been struggling with the loss of our baby. I know an ectopic is not viable and we did what absolutely needed to be done, but I still struggle with the loss. My husband who has been so close by my side had a thoughtful way of putting our situation into perspective for me. He said with this ectopic he was either going to lose both of us or one of us. And he's happy I'm still here by his side. Why yes, I did dissolve into tears hearing that.

There is no way to even begin to make sense of our loss. It's one of those very unfortunate things that can happen. All we can do is be thankful for the time we had with our little one and start picking up the pieces to move forward. This baby gave us hope. We have hope that we still have a chance of someday having a healthy baby. Even in the depths of our sorrow we can still look forward to our future. For now we will grieve, and when we're ready, we'll start working towards our next baby.

Our Baby is Gone

I am not able to even begin to wrap my mind around the last couple of weeks. Our ectopic was such and extremely rare event for a couple of reasons. Ectopics are rarely seen in 5 day transfers. Blasts are so close to implanting they just don't travel much. My left tube is the one that was supposedly blocked for the last two years or more from inside my uterus. It's the tube we never should have had to worry about. Adding these things together and I just can't make sense of what happened. I don't think my doctors can either.

We had a repeat ultrasound and beta on Monday. My beta was still going up, it was over 6700. After reviewing the ultrasound the doctor did feel it was most likely ectopic. Nothing was seen in my uterus except for the same fluid that was there on Friday. I asked her to consult with my doctor in California before we went ahead with surgery. She got a hold of him right away and he agreed with moving forward with tube removal. I had to report immediately to the hospital admitting. I first started crying as soon as I got to my room on the surgical unit. The nurses were very sensitive to my situation, it makes a huge difference having kind staff helping you. There were a couple of other emergent cases before mine so I had to wait about 2 1/2 hours.

I had a complete meltdown outside the operating suite. There were three very kind nurses there with me and I just started bawling. I told them right at that moment I was pregnant, but when I left the OR I no longer would be. Up until that moment my baby was still alive and growing. I mentioned a little bit about what we'd been through to get up to that point. I had two of the nurses in tears by the time we actually moved into the OR.

Post-op was a nightmare. I have never been so nauseous after surgery. I'm sure the fact that in the previous 24 hours all I had eaten was a granola bar had not helped my situation. They maxed out on nausea meds and were mentioning that I may have to stay overnight if I didn't start feeling better. I sucked it up the best I could and pushed for home. Once home I had a very long night. I was up every 45-60min to pee and my whole abdomen hurt from surgery. After about 4 hours of being home the nausea finally started to subside.

Tuesday I just munched on cheerios and applesauce and gatorade. My in-laws drove eight hours round  trip just to see us for two hours. That was extremely thoughtful of them. My doctor thought the odds of a viable pregnancy in my uterus is extremely low at this point, but gave us the option of continuing the PIO shots just in case. My husband wants to give it a chance so we are going ahead with them until a beta next week.Today I am feeling better. I haven't taken anything for pain since last night before bed. My appetite is slowly returning. I removed the bandaids from surgery and my scars look ugly. Not sure what happened to the one on my right hip, but it's over an inch long and very bruised. And after three laps now my poor belly button will never look the same. It even looks like it's struggling to stay an inny.

Emotionally I am still completely numb. It seems like this was all a very bad nightmare. Of all things to happen. We were so cautious, but then our betas kept doubling at good rates. And then we get hit with this. I think it's going to take some time to grieve this loss. I don't know how long it will take for me to accept that our baby is really gone.

It's ectopic

Going in for surgery tonight. I can't even begin to wrap my mind around the fact that my baby is going to be cut out of me. This is just awful.

This is Just Mean

It's official. The universe hates me.

My local clinic called and checked up on me on Wednesday morning. They asked if I wanted to come in for another beta and of course I said yes. You dangle extra monitoring in front of an infertile and she's going to take you up on it. Beta was 1893. A respectable increase.

My local doctor has also been following my case. I have only seen her once previously and that was in July to get a referral I needed for my doctor in CA to be covered in-network. After seeing my ultrasound Monday and my beta Wednesday, she wanted me to come in today for another ultrasound and beta. Beta today was 3800, a little more than double from Wednesday.

Background: This is important - two years ago when I had my last surgery for endometriosis the doctor found that my left tube was plugged from inside my uterus from endo. She did not try to clear the area because she felt it would cause scarring and that would be permanent. She has rarely seen tubes reopen, but it has happened.

Monday's ultrasound showed a possible growth in my left tube. Today that growth was much larger. There was also something seen in my uterus. My doctor told me that if I was a normal patient I would be in surgery right now having my tube removed. But, since we've been through so much and I'm not having any pain, she is willing to let me coast until Monday. The spot in my uterus could be fluid from the ectopic or it could be the other embryo. That's also why she's willing to let us wait until Monday. The on-call doctor has been notified so if I do have to go into the ER they will know what's going on. And of course my local doctor is off next week, so she's talked with another one of the OB/GYN's to follow me on Monday.

So basically the damn thing planted itself in the last place I ever expected. I finally get pregnant and it's going to end like this. This feels really cruel.

Yesterday I asked my acupuncturist if there was a way to tell if I'm having a boy or girl. He said there is a theory, although he has not found it to be anywhere near consistent. However, he checked for me, and in following with the Chinese theory, it's a boy.

Update: My IVF doctor in California called me back. He is not 100% convinced it's ectopic, but of course he acknowledges he hasn't seen the ultrasound images. He said there could be another issue in my tube. He said it's very rare for a day 5 blast to wander into a tube. He also doesn't feel that a rupture is imminent because usually that happens when your beta gets higher and the pregnancy is further along. But of course I am still to report to the ER if any symptoms arise. He thinks the ultrasound will hopefully show more on Monday. If it is ectopic he recommends removing the tube since we transferred two and if there is a viable pregnancy in my uterus he doesn't want to risk harming it.Basically we are just playing a waiting game.

More Bleeding and an Ultrasound

I woke this morning to bright red blood that was enough to almost be a light flow. I called the clinic and they had me go in for an ultrasound. No gestational sack was seen. I'm 5 weeks 5 days. I know my uterus is tilted so that could possibly be a contributing factor. I have a repeat ultrasound and a beta level next week. My poor cervix was not happy during the ultrasound and it caused quite a bit more bleeding. As of this evening the bleeding seems to have tapered off. I still don't have much of anything for cramps. Just mild twinges randomly and my cervix felt sore for awhile after the ultrasound this morning. No clots either. On bedrest until next week. I'm also drinking water like a fish. I know things aren't looking good, but I'm still trying to keep a calm and positive mindset. Bedrest is proving to be a challenge. I can't lay on my stomach because my boobs hurt and I can't lay on my sides or back because my butt hurts from the PIO shots. One day at a time...

Bleeding Scare

Yesterday I didn't feel the greatest. I had a queasy stomach in the morning and the afternoon I had hot flashes. By the evening I was having some mild cramping so I laid on the couch and drank some water. The cramping soon subsided. Last night I had several spots of pink and then it turned to brown. Not enough to even be close to saturating a light pad, but more than just spotting.

I called my doctor first thing this morning. They had me go in for blood work. Apparently sometimes progesterone can dip and cause some bleeding. My beta was 682 and is a 46.95hr doubling time from Tuesday. My progesterone was 22.5. My doctor wants me to add the dreaded PIO shots on top of the endometrin suppositories. Not exactly what I wanted to be doing, but I'll do whatever it takes to keep this pregnancy safe. Next follow up will be an ultrasound early next week. I haven't had anymore bleeding or spotting and I've only had a few small twinges.

This was quite a scare, but after seeing my beta I'm feeling better. My amazing husband has been waiting on me all day. He's doing his best to keep me distracted. Praying our little turtle is still hanging on.