Our Loss

**Originally posted Feb 17th, 2009

We have had quite a long and scary weekend. In an effort to process through the information and let everyone know what happened without actually having to rehash it a million times, I thought I would write a blog and hopefully people can get their questions answered here until Im ready to talk about it more.

Most of you know that we found out I was pregnant shortly after Jim’s mom passed away. We were very excited about this new little baby coming into our lives.

Saturday morning I woke up with what I thought was typical morning sickness, which quickly escalated from basic nausea to chills/sweats, dizziness, weakness, and disorientation. We knew there was something wrong when I discovered I had broken my front tooth and didn’t know how it happened. Everything seemed to just keep getting worse and somehow I kept finding myself lying on the floor not knowing where I was or how I got there. Luckily Jim was home so I had him take me to the ER thinking I was probably dehydrated.

When we arrived at the hospital, I was ghostly white, extremely weak, dizzy, and couldn’t even sit in the wheelchair without feeling faint. The ER doctor ordered an ultrasound and it was determined that I had an ectopic pregnancy (where the embryo implants in the fallopian tube) that had ruptured. At this point they knew my body was in shock because the rupture had caused severe blood loss in my abdominal cavity and the blood was pooling internally. We were told I had to have surgery to remove the embryo and the part of the tube that had ruptured. During this time, my blood pressure had been extremely low and getting lower as time went on. Suddenly my blood pressure dropped to 55/28 and I was rushed to surgery. It happened so quickly that Im not sure Jim even realized what was happening. Luckily everyone moved quickly and my surgery was successful. I didn’t know how close to death I was until I had heard the surgical team scrambling to stabilize me before surgery and the anesthesiologist telling everyone to take a deep breath once I was stable and my BP started going back up. I realized at that point that I was very close to leaving my kids without a mother.

After surgery they talked to us a lot more about what happened. I had to have been passing out at home because I had several bumps and bruises including a knot on my head and a broken tooth, which explained why I seemed to “come to” several times on the floor and not know where I was or how I got there. We were told that if I had waited another hour to come to the hospital, it would not have been such a good outcome. It was a good thing that we recognized something was very wrong and went to the hospital when we did.

The surgical team was awesome and moved quickly when it was apparent that I was crashing and they needed to get in NOW. I thank God for the OB and the anesthesiologist who both seemed to take a special interest in me and were some of the best doctors I’ve ever had. I lost a fallopian tube but I was able to keep both ovaries and everything else is in tact and functional.

I lost the baby, which was inevitable since it was an ectopic pregnancy, but we are thankful that I made it out of this only losing a fallopian tube. I will be recovering from this for several weeks because it was major surgery, but I am blessed to have my mom nearby who will be helping me with the kids everyday when Jim is at work.

It has been an unbelievably difficult loss that Jim and I are still trying to process and work through. I am on an emotional rollercoaster right now and I cant even put into words what Im feeling or thinking. Its a lot easier for me to talk about the physical aspects of what happened to me which is why I needed to write this out. I have a hard time talking about my loss and Im not ready to talk about it with everyone yet. I do appreciate your kind words and thoughts.

Keep us in your prayers and thoughts and know that we are grieving the best way we know how.