Abortion

I was writing a comment to Stephanie, who is in my blogroll links. I started weeping, something not exactly "normal" for me. So I thought, maybe I ought to write my thoughts on my own page, maybe it would be cathartic?

A few years ago, 10 months before I got pregnant with my oldest son, Cooper, I had an ectopic pregnancy. It was definitely unexpected, luckily some odd spotting caused my OB to tell me to take a pregnancy test "just to rule it out."

It ruled it in.

For a week or so they knew the pregnancy wasn't viable because of the hcg and progesterone levels in my bloodwork, but couldn't find the sac anywhere. They advised me to wait for my body to naturally miscarry. Then when that didn't happen and my hcg levels kept rising erratically, I was sent for a high risk u/s.

The perinatologist thought the baby was maybe attached to my ovary by the looks of a cyst filled with blood or something (the details are now cloudy, thank the Lord). My OB at the time (thankfully not my OB now) recommended a D&C in order to be sure no fetal tissue was left in my uterus in case I had miscarried and missed it. I remember sitting in his office in shock, not wanting to let his nurse schedule me the next day for that procedure, willing my body to walk out and get a second, third, sixteenth opinion.

When we got to the hospital, they sent a woman from the hospital ministries to speak to me. I think that was one of the hardest days for both N and me, the day of the D&C, when all the hospital caregivers were telling us they were sorry for our loss.

Anyway, I digress. The D&C showed a uterus clean as a whistle. My doctor had a hard time even getting enough tissue to send to pathology. The report said it was not fetal tissue, no evidence of a prior pregnancy left. This was when I was told my hcg was still rising and they were 99.9% sure I'd had an ectopic pregnancy on my ovary as my tubes were clear. This was bad news, as an ectopic pregnancy will end in death for the mother and the baby if left untreated.

I was sent to the hospital's chemo infusion center, a lovely center with big loungey infusion chairs attached to private televisions with a nice big curtain to pull around me. I was alone, and I waited for a nurse to come give me a bolus IM injection of methotrexate, a drug for cancer, into my heiny. It didn't hurt, and I left into the clear sunny September afternoon. And I cried. And cried. And cried.

See, the thing is, I had an abortion. I wanted that baby with my whole heart. The second I saw the line on the test, I wanted that child to be with me the rest of my life. I wanted it in my belly and then in my arms. I didn't care that I wasn't yet married. I didn't care about anything,

At every single turn I was looking for the out, the doctor to come in the room and say "oops, we were wrong! We found your baby in your uterus, everything looks great!" Or "well, looky here! Your hcg levels are doubling nicely, looks like you just got off to a rocky start." They never said that. They never said anything but "I'm sorry."

I don't like thinking about what I did, what the "treatment" is for an ectopic pregnancy. I didn't like reading about a woman who carried a baby to term that was attached to her ovary (no one knew it until delivery). For a number of reasons, I changed doctor's after all that. I have asked my new OB (who I love) over and over if she thinks I really had an ectopic pregnancy? She assures me that yes, I did, we just never saw it.

*sigh* See, it's not easy. It's not easy being on this side of the argument, and this is nothing compared to the devastation that some women go through. I still think about my first baby all the time. I worry every month that I'm going through it again, that we're going through it again.

What if what my doctors had done to save my life was illegal? Or unavailable? I don't know, I don't have the answers. And I'm voting for John McCain, but that's a whole other story! So yeah....

**Tim, I think the word you were looking for is parasite.