Monday October 10, 2016

The day started out normal. We had just got home the night before from a weekend away.  Baby Squirrel’s first weekend away to be exact. The kids and I slept in a bit but I had gotten them up, changed, and brought downstairs. I started our morning routine but noticed I had a sharp cramping pain on my right side.  I thought it odd because I had just had my “period” a week and a half prior.  I say “period” because I have an IUD and typically have a day or 2 of light spotting, if that.

An intrauterine device (IUD) is a little, t-shaped piece of plastic inserted into the uterus to provide birth control.  An IUD is one of the most  effective forms of birth control with a 99.7 percent efficacy rate.

Quickly the pain became more severe, and even started to travel down my right leg. I text my girlfriend about it and she said it sounded exactly like a ruptured ovarian cyst. Nothing I did made the pain better or worse, it was a constant sharp pain, like the worst cramps ever with a dull achy pain down my leg, around my knee, and ending in my ankle. I had never experienced a cyst before so when the pain hadn’t let up for over 30 minutes I called an advice nurse at our hospital. The pain continued to spike while we talked and she made me an appointment to be seen by my general physician an hour and a half later, but told me if the pain got more severe or I had a fever to go straight to the ER.

Luckily my husband had the day off work for Columbus Day and, once his mom got to our house to watch the kids, he drove me to the hospital. Once there we took the stairs to the second floor, my husband acting as a crutch since my right ankle still really hurt with each step. During the drive my pain had actually nearly completed diminished.

The first thing my doctor asked was if I could be pregnant. No, obviously. I have an IUD in place, we were not trying, I have PCOS and had to use fertility treatment to conceive my twins.  She pushed around on my abdomen but the pain was gone.

I had already been thinking lately about having my IUD removed.  Not to have another child but because the idea of a foreign body inside me along with all the horror stories I had heard of IUDs rupturing women’s’ uteruses or traveling elsewhere in the body.  My current pain just pushed those stories to the front of my mind as an imminent possibility.  My doctor wanted to me to get blood work done before heading home.

That night my doctor emailed me,

“One of your blood test results is back and shows that your bHCG is high. This is the hormone that is elevated when you are pregnant. I have referred you to gynecology for an urgent appointment tomorrow.”

Shocked but still feeling that it was completely impossible, I Google searched for other causes of high levels of bHCG.  Never the best idea. Like most self-diagnoses, it was cancer. Certain cancers can cause elevated levels of bHCG.

Tuesday October 11, 2016

The nurse called me from the waiting area and took me to a room.  As OBGYN protocol, I had to give a urine sample which the nurse would test.  I explained to her my recent happenings and disbelief.  IUD. PCOS. Infertility. Yada yada.

She took a dropper of my pee and dropped it on a card-shaped pregnancy test.  Nearly instantly it turned positive. Big. Fat. Positive. I was pregnant. WTF mate?!

Just like when I found out I was pregnant with the twins, I laughed.  What were the odds?! Less than 1% the doctor told me when she came in.  She performed an ultrasound and found my IUD was perfectly in place and I didn’t appear to have any visible cysts on my ovaries that could be the culprit of my pain.  The pregnancy was still too early to see with an ultrasound; but since I was having such bad pain there was a chance it was ectopic – meaning the fertilized egg had implanted in my fallopian tube.  Uterus = good. Fallopian tube = bad.  I had already decided I wanted her to remove my IUD, and now if I decided to proceed with this pregnancy it needed to come out anyway.  Just like going in, it hurt like a bitch coming out.

She asked me if it was a desired pregnancy. “Uhhh, that’s a complicated questions and answer,” I replied.

For so many reasons. We weren’t trying for more kids.  The twins had just turned two and were acting it.  Our hands were so full we weren’t even sure if we wanted any more kids. And as much as we loved our Baby Girl, we couldn’t manage another child with CHARGE Syndrome.  We would need additional genetic testing before continuing with a pregnancy.  Even having another healthy typical child would be like having twins again since Baby Girl still wasn’t walking or crawling.

I would be lying if I said I wasn’t a little excited.  Pregnancy is exciting.  It’s something to look forward to.  But at the same time I knew there was a good chance it wasn’t a viable pregnancy.  After my appointment I went outside and sat on a bench in the sun.  I called one of my best friends who lives on the east coast and told her the news.  We talked it through. I was still in disbelief as much as she was.  I’ve always wanted more than two kids, just not yet.  Then again when is it ever a good time for more kids?  Just in case I emailed my doctor to ask if it was safe to continue taking Zoloft.  She said it was the safest SSRI to take while pregnant.  It would be safer for my pregnancy overall to have my anxiety disorders properly managed.

Wednesday October 12, 2016

I had to go back for more blood work to see if my hormone levels were going up or down and by how much.  My doctor emailed me when she received my lab result,

“Your level just came back, and is now down to 339 for 414. The fact that it is going down shows us that this is not a normal pregnancy as we suspected. The fact that it is going down instead of up is good in terms of risk for ectopic, but we still need to follow this to make sure they continue to go down to zero. Please repeat your lab again on Friday, and come in right away if you start to have strong abdominal pain.”

I knew from my miscarriage nearly 3 years prior that a drop in hormone levels meant the pregnancy would not continue. I was mostly relieved.  I knew we didn’t truly want the pregnancy to begin with.  This way we wouldn’t have to make the ultimate decision, it was made for us.  So I would continue to get my blood drawn every two days till my hormone levels returned to zero.

Friday October 14, 2016

The pain had returned with a vengeance.  When my husband came home from work that afternoon I had him take me to the ER. We checked in at 5pm and wouldn’t go home till 7 hours later and a shot in each butt cheek.

They finally got me into a bed and ordered an ultrasound.  An ectopic pregnancy hadn’t been completely ruled out and the pain could mean my fallopian tube had ruptured, which would require surgery.  An ultrasound would help the doctor determine if I did in fact need emergency surgery or if I was a candidate for medication that would dissolve the pregnancy.  I brought up the possibility that my hormone levels were alternatively being caused by cancerous cells.  The doctor reassured me that the medication worked by attacking any rapidly multiplying cells, which includes embryos and tumors.  This is also why I would have to continue having my blood tested every 2 days till my hormone levels returned to zero to assure that if it was a tumor it was completely eradicated.

As any one who has been to the emergency department knows, there is no such thing as a quick ER visit.  I finally get wheeled over to the ultrasound room.  It was the same room and technician I’d had during my first pregnancy which ended in miscarriage.  I remember being frightened that time, and alone – my husband was not allowed to go with me that time.  This time, however, he wasn’t leaving my side.  I squeezed his hand tightly during each flashback.

The absolute WORST part of an ultrasound is when the technician isn’t talking to you.  We learned with our very first pregnancy, and a majority of ultrasounds since, that silence usually means they see something abnormal. Ultrasounds are probably exciting and joyous for most woman. But for me, they are traumatic.  Not only are they invasive (early in a pregnancy ultrasounds are done vaginally with a “wand”, they are given on the belly later on when the fetus is larger), but they are looking at something that you’ve either intentionally – or not – attached a piece of your heart and soul.  It kills a piece of you every time they find something that isn’t “perfect.”

This tech barely said a word to us.  I could sense my husband was scared, so was I. Every terrible thought was going through my head.  I became fixated on the thought of if it was cancer and I died my children wouldn’t even remember me.  That was the scariest thing I could imagine at the time.  After many silent tears, and what felt like years, I was wheeled back to my cubby in the emergency department for more waiting.

Finally the doctor came and told us it appeared to in fact be an ectopic pregnancy and that my tube had not yet ruptured, meaning I would not need surgery. Woohoo!  However I would need to roll over onto all fours for a shot in each cheeks. My husband and I couldn’t resist, nearly in unison we quoted, “that’s how this whole mess got started.”

They finally sent me home around 1AM. I would have to continue having my blood tested every week till my hormone level returned to zero. Which would take over a month.  After my second to last blood draw my doctor called me laughing to tell me my levels were 0.5! As I’m sure you know, 0.5 isn’t zero.

And yes, we bought lottery tickets.
We have yet to be in THAT 1%.