Ectopic Pregnancy: My Story, Part II

Because this story is long, I’m sharing it in several stages. This is Part II. Read Part I here.

On the way to the doctor’s office, I turned on the radio to hear the song “Worn” by Tenth Avenue North. Again.

It had been meaningful to me two short months ago, when I’d had “the other miscarriage.” At the time, I tried not to read anything into it, but I cried the whole time listening.

At my appointment, the nurse practitioner was reassuring… My pregnancy test was positive, and she had half-a-dozen explanations for the pain I was having. But we’d just do an ultrasound, just to see.

I remember laying down during the ultrasound, screening the face of the technician for clues. After two weeks painful curiosity, here was the moment. What was in there? A baby? A heartbeat? Nothing?

Her face was blank. No, there was something else there. Confusion? Concern? She finished the ultrasound and said nothing. It was an awkward empty silence, and I had to ask it.

“I don’t know. I’m not sure. I’ll have to let her see.”

I was shaking a little, and knew. Then the nurse practitioner, ultrasound photos in hand, scurried off somewhere else, “just to ask another opinion.”

I wasn’t ready to know, but I heard them talking in a hallway behind me. I heard her ask something, and a deep male (doctor’s?) voice, saying… “D and C…” “test again…”

I felt a drop in my stomach, but remember briefly hoping that maybe there were twins, and one was okay.

She ushered me into an office, shut the door, and the words were a blur. All I know that is that she said at least eight times, “There is nothing here that is viable.” She said it so many times I had to resist the urge to scream: “I get it! Stop saying it!”

I was crying, and done being alone. Todd was on his way. I had to tell him, and my mom and sisters. I texted “ectopic.”

and wanted the rest of the conversation to disappear forever off my phone.

It was over, the answer was there, but it wasn’t over. There were logistics. It looked like there was something behind my ovary. It might be ectopic; it was hard to tell. It was too early. I needed bloodwork, and to come back in a few hours. I might need a shot. Of chemo? (This was new to me.) I might need surgery.

I got my bloodwork done, alone, and the super-friendly nurse asked me if I had big plans for the weekend. No, just having a miscarriage. That’s all.

At this point, despite all the chaos, I was starving. Todd and I met up in the parking lot of Bojangles and ate lunch in the van. He told me he loved me, and there was nowhere else he’d rather be, than with me, in the Bojangles parking lot, talking about another miscarriage.

The plan was to come back in the doctor’s in four hours, and most likely, I’d receive a chemo shot that would begin to dissolve the pregnancy. I was just waiting for them to confirm.

Well, the call came, but there was a twist. “Jessica? Your blood work came in, but it’s not what we thought. You need to come in and talk to the doctor. You might not need the shot.”

She sounded upbeat. I had no idea what this meant, but it sounded like good news. Maybe there was a lighter “treatment” than this shot of chemotherapy?

And there I was again in the office, door closed, this time with my husband next to me. She looked at us with a weird look.

“We got your blood work. It’s just – it’s not what we thought. It’s inconclusive.”

Read Part III here.