Ectopic Awareness Raising – Part 1

I came to the world of infertility through an ectopic pregnancy.  Ectopic pregnancies*, or pregnancies outside the uterus, are relatively rare; 2-3% of all pregnancies are ectopic.  Diagnosis is not always easy.  Doctors often send women away, telling them they are having a miscarriage.  This is understandable, as miscarriage occurs in maybe 1 in every 3 pregnancies.  But because they don’t – as my GP says – maintain a high degree of suspicion when a woman of child-bearing age presents with pain or bleeding - women die.  Ectopic pregnancies grow, fallopian tubes (or worse) can’t stretch any more and rupture, and the mother bleeds out.  Ectopic pregnancies are dangerous, they kill.  Left untreated and growing the mother will die, and the pregnancy itself is never viable. Any increase in awareness is going to help save lives – and this is why I feel the need to talk about my experience.

My husband and I had been trying to conceive for about 18 months.  We weren’t doing it scientifically, I wasn’t tracking my cycle, and I was travelling a lot for work, reducing the opportunities for conception.  Then I returned from an overseas trip realising my period was late.  A positive pregnancy test was followed by shock (considerable), jubilation (muted but growing), and disbelief (when I began bleeding).  To keep this brief, it led to a diagnosis by my excellent GP of a potential ectopic pregnancy.  She didn't dismiss my bleeding - heavy though it had been - as a miscarriage.  She made sure, and ordered serial blood tests to see if my hormone levels were increasing or decreasing.  They were increasing, but not normally, and a subsequent scan confirmed an ectopic.   

I found myself in the women’s hospital on a warm, light December evening,  with Mr Bean’s Christmas playing annoyingly on the waiting room TV, waiting to be treated medically with a drug called methotrexate that is commonly used as chemotherapy.  I was asked to stay close to the hospital, going no further than 40 minutes away, given the risk of rupture.  So travel plans for Christmas (to family in the South Island) had to be cancelled, and as a result people had to be told.  For the first time Christmas was something to be endured, not enjoyed.

My treatment was uneventful.  My hCG (pregnancy hormone) levels were relatively low, at about 1000.  The methotrexate worked, and after seven days my levels started to drop.  It still took five weeks to get the all clear.  Five weeks of regular blood tests, of feeling as if there was a time bomb inside me.  Five weeks of grieving our lost baby at the same time that we felt relieved that I was alive and well. 

*  It would be remiss of me to try to raise awareness without directing you to the Ectopic Pregnancy Trust's website, the most reliable site on the web for information about ectopic pregnancy, and a personal lifeline for me in my time of need.