Friday the 13th

Friday the 13th delivered on its promise to be a very bad day. Actually, it was pretty normal for the work day, and then I picked up Gavin, and while I was heading down the freeway on our way to meet Dylan and my parents at Spinato's, I started to get some lower abdominal pain that felt like cramps x 10. Kind of like going into labor. It hurt, but I was fine so I kept going. Until I felt like I was going to faint. So I pulled over in a neighborhood off of Via Linda, put on my hazard lights, and called Dylan to come get us. I put my feet up on the dash to get some blood flow to the noggin and Gavin chilled quietly in the back until Dylan and my parents all showed up at once.

We continued on our way to Spinato's with me NOT behind the wheel, and I laid down in the booth, which I'm sure brought some stares, but I didn't give a hot. The faintness subsided, the cramps subsided, but the lower abdominal pain did not. Oh well. We headed home. Then at 8:30 I got really nervous because I felt a strange pressure in the pelvic area that I did not recognize. So we woke up Baby G and headed to Scottsdale Healthcare Shea for the second time in two months. My mom met us there and took the baby, and we headed inside.

I hoped upon hope it was just some crazy UTI and that I'd get some antibiotics and be on my way. Then the nurse happily exclaimed that my pee looked great! Ugh. The high point of the night was that my ER doc was a very old friend of my dad's (they did their residency together), so we got to shoot the breeze with him for a little bit, and then he was off for the night, which was good. Because the situation had the potential to be awkward, seeing as it probably involved my lady parts.

After the longest ultrasound of my life, a few vials of blood that were submitted to the lab, and my IV in place, I learned that I had some good ol' HCG coursing through my veins (pregnant?!?) but a very empty uterus. To the fifth floor I went...admitted for the night. In the morning, I had more blood drawn, and finally my regular OB came into see me. Diagnosis: ectopic pregnancy. The fix: an IM shot of poison (aka methotrexate) in the rump to stop the dividing cells and save myself a ruptured tube, emergency surgery, and/or death. I'm not a fan of receiving toxic chemotherapy but decided it was much better than the alternative. Hopefully by treating the situation medically my tube will be preserved. I had a little bit of internal bleeding that showed up on the ultrasound, but my tubes were still ok.

Only just today can I say that the abdominal pain is gone. That was the most persistent stomachache of my life! I went for some follow-up labs and an ultrasound today, which will become the new normal until my HCG drops to nil and they know nothing is growing where it shouldn't be, which should take about a month. The ultrasound tech saw some pretty significant stuff in the right Fallopian tube, but the doctor had taken off to Peru. So I'm not exactly sure where we stand, but I'll know more tomorrow when I go in to see the NP. Who knew that an ectopic pregnancy could be such a process?

Yeah, it's a real bummer of a situation, so I allowed myself a few minutes of self-pity on Saturday before my methotrexate dose arrived, which included the following thoughts: why do I have such a high pregnancy failure rate?, I'm so tired of being up to my ears in medical bills, I hate having to take poison, now I have a higher chance of this happening with subsequent pregnancies and what if I can never give Gavin a brother or sister, I'm sad that my weekend is ruined, etc, etc, etc.

But then just like that, the pity party was over. Because you know what? If this had happened two days earlier, I wouldn't have had Dylan NOR my parents in town. I would have had to call 911 on the side of the road, I would have been all alone, and I don't know what I would have done with Gavin. Everyone in our family is in good overall health, despite the fact that we've all but taken up residence at the hospital, and this was discovered early enough to hopefully preserve my tube (as long as all goes as planned with the treatment) and my life. I may have a tougher time achieving a normal pregnancy in the future, but odds are still good that I can. And if I don't? We have a beautiful baby boy, we are happy, and everything will be great.

So life will continue as usual. I'm hoping I won't need another dose of the MTX. It makes me dizzy, I can't drink while I'm on it (not that big of a deal), and it's just plain nasty. I cannot get pregnant again for at least three months to let the drug clear from my body because it's super dangerous to a developing fetus. That is a-OK. I'm just about ready to jump off this reproductive roller coaster after all this, so hopefully with some time I'll change my mind. Plus, I'm much better off spacing two babies a little further apart. Preserve my mental stability a bit. (This was not a planned pregnancy, which makes me feel like an irresponsible teenager. How could it be so hard to not get pregnant?)

I hope your weekend was about 100x better than ours. Thanks for listening to my story, and next time I share the details of what's going on with my uterus and ovaries, I hope it will be a happy tale!