Kordelia – My story of an ectopic pregnancy & a missed miscarriage

July 1, 2022

My Ectopic Pregnancy – April 26, 2015

I am not exactly sure what day it was when I found out I was pregnant, either the 17th or 18th of April, 2015. I was so excited, I could hardly believe it.

Fast forward a week, and it was now Saturday April 25th. I was 5 weeks pregnant and had only known for a week. We went to my in-laws for the afternoon and around 3pm, I started feeling pain in my right, lower abdomen.

I tried to ignore it, hoping it would go away. But it didn’t.

I told my husband I wasn’t feeling well, so we went home. I had something to eat, had a shower and went to lay down.
It was getting worse by the minute.
I had a horrible feeling and I knew that something wasn’t right…

At that point, I googled my symptoms and ectopic pregnancy came up, I had never heard of it before so I didn’t think much of it. Around 6pm we decided to go to the Emergency Department at our local Hospital to get checked out.

We were triaged and quickly put into a room where I got my first dose of morphine because the pain was excruciating. It didn’t do much, so they gave me another dose. Everything happened so quickly. The doctor told me that they believed it was a tubal pregnancy. My first thought was of my baby and I asked if there was anything they could do to save them.

The doctor said it was impossible.

By 9pm I was being transported by ambulance to the Women’s Hospital in Winnipeg. During the 1hour ride in the ambulance, I prayed so hard that it wouldn’t be true. I cried! I felt so alone! While waiting to be admitted at the Women’s Hospital, I just laid there and cried. It’s so hard for me to write this, because nobody knows how much I cried that night and in the days and months that followed.
I’m crying right now just writing this!

They did an ultrasound and asked lot more questions. Finally, my husband got there and I didn’t feel so alone anymore. We prayed and waited. But by 2am I was in the operating room for an emergency laparoscopic surgery. My fallopian tube had ruptured and my abdomen was starting to fill with blood. When they rolled me into the operating room, I cried even harder. My face must have looked terrible, but I didn’t care. My heart was broken.

My right fallopian tube, with the baby, were removed to save my life.

We were discharged on Sunday, April 26th at 6pm. The following week was hard. I was off work for a week to recover and heal, and at the end of that week, I had a check up and I asked for another week off.
That really helped to process and heal.

Physically, I was ready to go back to work after 2 weeks, but mentally and emotionally it took months. I didn’t understand why this had happened to me, but I wanted to trust God and accept that He only had the best in mind for me.

My miscarriage story – May 24th, 2019.

It was almost four years later in the spring of 2019, and I had just found out I was pregnant again. I was shocked to see those 2 pink lines finally appear on the test after almost one year of waiting.

With my history of an ectopic pregnancy, I had an early ultrasound to confirm that the baby was implanted in my uterus and not my fallopian tube. It was in the correct place but it was too early to see a heartbeat at that time, which left me a little unsettled. Everything seemed to be going okay, but I just couldn’t shake the feeling that something wasn’t right. I wasn’t hit with nausea at around 6 weeks like with my previous pregnancy, but I brushed it off because like they say, “no two pregnancies are the same.” But from the very beginning, something just felt a little off to me.

Then at almost 11 weeks, I started spotting. I will probably never forget that moment, my heart sank and fear settled in but yet I was in denial. At that point it hadn’t even crossed my mind that I could lose the baby. This baby was such an answer to prayer, it just couldn’t be. The bleeding slowly got worse and the next day we went to the Emergency Room to get checked out. My blood work showed that I should be around 8 weeks pregnant even though I knew I should be further along. They told me I was likely having a missed miscarriage. That’s when the baby is no longer alive and growing, but the mothers body still acts like it is a normal pregnancy.

There wasn’t really anything the could yet at that point, so they told us to wait it out.

That evening we went out for ice cream and I felt so helpless. I was so grateful for my husband and daughter but at the same time, my heart was breaking into a million pieces. I never thought I would actually lose another baby. The next morning, I was woken up from pain and then I realized, they were contractions. It all happened so fast. Contractions stopped, and I was left with blood, pain and a beautiful little baby, that was already with Jesus.

The miscarriage hit me hard. It completely knocked me down. I spiraled for months. It was the hardest thing I had ever gone through.

The coming months were filled with denial. I refused to accept what had happened. Before I found out I was pregnant, we had people pray over me, pray for this baby and it just felt so wrong that God would give it to us, just to take it away again. And to be honest, I still don’t have all the answers.

I was so stuck in my own head, and not working through the spiritual side of the events throughout this whole process, so I found myself becoming numb. I had days where I would just cry. I felt so lost and alone. I didn’t talk to anyone about it because I thought I could figure it out on my own.

About 6 months after my miscarriage, I was in a very a dark place. Until one day I finally made the decision to seek help.

We had a great family doctor at the time, and he referred me to a psychologist. I also spoke with a pastor because I was struggling so much spiritually, trying to make sense of it all. They both helped me a lot and I was finally able to navigate out of that dark place.

I will always encourage people to seek help. There are people out there, trained and ready to help. We don’t have to feel shame, we don’t have to try and figure it out by ourselves.
You are not alone!

It has taken me 3 years to finally have the courage to tell my story, but I feel like I am now able to better understand women who lost babies, grieve with them and support them. My hope is that my story will help you, whether you’ve been through a miscarriage yourself or to better understand someone who has.

My advice for anyone who has experienced loss, is to give yourself time and permission to grieve. Cry as much and for as long as you need to. There is nothing wrong with crying. It helped my soul to heal. I like to talk about my angel babies because I want to remember that my babies existed. I think too many women feel like they shouldn’t talk about their baby loss because it might feel uncomfortable for the people around them who haven’t experienced a pregnancy loss.

And please, never tell a grieving mother that she is still young, she can have more babies. While it might be true, no one but the mom knows the full story and it does not help in the moment!

Thank you for reading my story.
I hope you found encouragement.

-Kordelia B

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