It’s hard to believe that a month has passed since I was diagnosed with an Ectopic Pregnancy. The time’s gone so quick; quicker than it ever does when you’re counting down the weeks to get to that 12 week scan.
Physically I think my recovery has gone/is going well. I’ve rested as much as possible, not done anything strenuous, and basically just done as much (or as little!) as I can to help my wounds heal. The right side is healing much faster than the left, but I guess that may be due to the fact that the left side is where the ectopic was and where my tube was removed. My belly button seems to have healed well too, though it looks like when they stitched it up it’s left a teeny fold in the skin. Now I know in the grand scheme of things that’s unimportant but (to me) I always had a perfectly formed belly button and now it’s not quite as perfect!!!
My emotional recovery, well, that’s harder. To be fair, in my own humble opinion I think I’m doing ok. I’ve had days where I feel utterly miserable and just want to cry until I can cry no more, but I also try to be quite upbeat and look at things with a touch of humour (see earlier comment about my belly button!). It’s just, I feel like everyone’s moving on with their lives and we’re stuck, or at least this part of our lives is stuck in 2006 because we’re not really any further forward than when we first started trying for a baby. Except back then we had everything ahead of us, and we hadn’t experienced the pain of 4 miscarriages and an ectopic. We try not to dwell on what would have been but it’s hard not to remember that our first should have had their 1st birthday last month, or that I should have been nearly 16 weeks pregnant now. I don’t begrudge our family or friends their children, of course I wouldn’t, but I do also think “what about us?” When do we get to have children and enjoy the family life that everyone around us does.
I also feel very alone at times. Now if my friends were reading this they’d tell me I’m not alone, and I know I’m not in terms of support and friendship which I truly value and am so grateful for. However, there’s only so much someone “not in my shoes” can sympathise or support, because you cannot truly understand the depth of pain both physical and emotional unless you’ve been through it yourself. Thankfully (obviously not thankful for our circumstances) I’ve met through the powers of social media a few ladies who do know exactly how I’m feeling and I know they’ll have felt the same pit of despair, emptiness and anger… I cannot begin to put in to words the true extent of my feelings because there are no words, but I know they know and I don’t need to explain. I really don’t mean this as a slight towards any of my friends, in real life or online, that haven’t experienced this but it’s like anything in life, if you have no experience of it you can only imagine but cannot fully understand.
Going forward, we have no other choice than to keep going, but I really don’t know how much more I can take. Having said that the alternative is to give up, and I don’t think I’m quite ready to do that yet no matter how much pain we’ve already gone through. My GP has made the referral back to the hospital for me to attend the recurrent miscarriage clinic so now I just have to wait for an appointment. In the meantime we try again. The Drs at the hospital told me to wait until after my first AF which should arrive about 6 weeks after the surgery, the Ectopic organisation say to wait until after 2 AFs or 3 months have past but I’m not sure I can wait that long. After all it took us so long to get here and time’s not exactly on our side now for having 2 or 3 kids.
Emily says
I could have written this, almost word for word. I know exactly what you mean. Grief is a very lonely experience, and it’s wonderful to have the support of friends and family but, it’s still so hard to be surrounded by evidence of other people’s easy pregnancies and family lives. For me it felt like torture sometimes. My husband was great, but the losses did not hurt him anywhere near as much as they hurt me…. and that was tough. But life *does* move on and it won’t always be like this. Please be kind and patient with yourself. Like you say, there’s no alternative right now. The medical facts remain that most people who suffer RM and Ectopic pregnancies can AND DO go on to have a successful pregnancy. I know it doesn’t mean much, and when my consultant kept saying that to me – i just thought she was trying to cheer me up. But it’s true. Thanks for sharing, i am so touched to hear other people’s stories. Take care. e.xx