If in doubt, demand a transvaginal ultrasound!

During pregnancy it is hard to determine whether the internet is more of a help or a hindrance. Is it safe to eat this, can I lift that, can I smell this and is it okay if I wear that? Its crazy!! Our mothers didn't have to do this! They just shoved a cracker in their mouth and got on with it.
I remember when I was pregnant with my son, I was most disturbed by the pictures I found in google images. For one thing I had put on a LOT more weight than everyone else had seemed to, I assumed everyone had a triple chin during third trimester. The pictures of the developing foetus didn't make me feel closer to my baby, it had me waking in the middle of the night in a cold sweat whispering desperately to whoever was listening "please don't let me give birth to an alien....please!!!"
During a heart to heart my Sister grabbed me by the shoulders, stared me straight in the eye and said, "If we were supposed to see our babies when they look like aliens we would have see through bellies. We are not supposed to know they look like that, okay???"That makes sense.
However, not being able to eat feta cheese or salami whilst your baby is floating around swallowing its own excrement doesn't make any sense whatsoever. Well... I digress.
It is not advised that the internet be your only resource for your health concerns,I like to think of it as a complimentary medicine. If you are like me and do a toss up in your head it would sound something like.
I can have 1.3 million not so accurate mainly stupid answers that have nothing to do with what is wrong with me, sitting comfortably on my couch with a cup of tea and my purse left untouched....or.....I could make an appointment with the doctor,get some cash out on the way there, wait in the germ infested heaven of a waiting room looking at the kids playing with the toys in the corner wanting to douse them in bleach and hang them out to dry, glance over at the coffee table covered in magazines that you dare not touch without gloves, looking at the clock which is ticking loudly in the corner, a constant reminder that 40 minutes has past since your appointment was meant to start , holding your breath just hoping that noone in the room has just flown in  from overseas with a deadly airborne virus. Don't even ask me what happens if the doctor needs a sample!

Unfortunately, when you type in pregnant, bloated,pain and nauseous into any search engine there is no information about ectopic pregnancy. The symptoms of ectopic pregnancy are much the same as any normal pregnancy. Worse still if you don't know that you are pregnant you could be diagnosed with appendicitis or gastroenteritis and that could be deadly. In Australia if you present to a hospital and you are a woman of child bearing age, with abdominal discomfort you are immediately treated as a possible ectopic pregnancy until proven otherwise. This response has had a dramatic effect on early diagnosis in Australia. This is great if you live in the city, if like me you live in rural Australia then make sure your local health facility has a transvaginal ultrasound machine, if they don't then find one that does. It may mean a drive to the nearest town, or further but I'm telling you now that drive is well worth the trouble if you are the unlucky 1 in 100 women to have an ectopic pregnancy.

I was severely bloated at 5 weeks pregnant, I had shooting pain down my right side and severe nausea. I had no bleeding, and the pain was not constant. If you experience any abdominal discomfort during your first few weeks of pregnancy I urge you to go and get a transvaginal ultrasound done as soon as possible.

It is up to us to listen to our bodies and assert our concern to our health professionals. Ectopic pregnancy is difficult to diagnose unless we specifically address our concerns and symptoms.

If you have already experienced an ectopic pregnancy I ask you to educate your friends and family about the signs and symptoms. If you are recently pregnant please get a transvaginal ultrasound to make sure your fallopian tubes are clear. If you are not sure what you can see on the screen, ask them to check. It doesn't matter if the radiologist is rude to you, its your life at risk.

Anyone else here had a miss diagnosed ectopic? I would love to hear your story. Its so important that we let other people know what can happen and more importantly tell others to help ourselves heal from what we have been through.

Think pink,

Janey

What to do in the face of negligence?

The chance of dying from an ectopic pregnancy in Australia is pretty rare these days. We are so privileged to have access to the latest and greatest of trans vaginal ultrasound technology and blood screening. When I say we I mean "the majority" of Australians.
In my case I lived in a remote aboriginal community with limited facilities. The Australian government funds the local "health facility" which on a good day has 2 doctors, a handful of nurses,a child health nurse, a midwife and whatever specialist has flown out for the day.( dentist, gynaecologist, oncologist,psychologist etc)and a couple of students thrown in for good measure.These are the days when its great to be sick because everyone is so busy running around like a headless chook you are lucky if you  get to make eye contact with anyone.
On a bad day, you will have to press a button on the side of the building that goes to message bank and you have no choice but to leave a message and sit and wait. Usually when everyone has gone on leave or a convention at the same time or the odd cruise ship which has been known to happen.

On the evening I collapsed from the ectopic rupture, it was approximately 7 o'clock and the sun hadn't quite set. My son was sitting down to his dinner in front of the television and I was laying on my bed, buckled up in pain begging my husband to get me help.
We lived in the same street as most of the full time health workers. Our immediate neighbours were an old couple, one of them had worked for my husband and the other was the 2IC nurse at the health facility. We had socialised with them a couple of times during our contract. My husband ran next door and rapped on their door. No answer. He could hear them talking so he knocked again and called their names. No answer. He rang his mobile number and left a message. He was on his way to press the button when to his surprise the old man phoned back. In my husbands desperation he asked to speak with his wife, the nurse. She came to the door, he told her that I was pregnant and had collapsed in pain, he was scared and didn't know what to do. She looked at him and said" I'm not on call tonight, you'll need to see the nurse on call." and turned away.

What felt like a lifetime later he came back.The nurse that came was the nurse that had been there during my initial scan. The scan that I received because I had complained of localised pain shooting down my right side. The scan where I was told that there was a 5 week 3 day old foetus in my uterus. The first thing she asked me was if  I was experiencing any blood loss. I hadn't. I will never forget the look on her face as she "treated" me. She looked at me as if i was over dramatising a simple miscarriage. She told my husband to get me a hot water bottle and said I looked a little pale. When she asked me if i could walk over to the clinic I told her that I felt as though my bowel was about to explode. My husband returned with a hot water bottle and put it where she told him to and I started to feel very ill. She walked out of the room to call the doctor.

The doctor arrived shortly after and arranged my transport to the health clinic via the ambulance. When I say ambulance I mean a landcruiser troop carrier with a broken stretcher that nobody knew how to use.When i was dragged into the emergency room I heard the doctor tell my husband that she believed it was an ectopic pregnancy. I was shocked, "but the midwife saw the baby, in my uterus,she saw it on the ultrasound." To which the doctor responded "that machine is 20 years old, I wouldn't trust it to see anything." The nurse who had sat by my side while the midwife had done the scan and had helped her take my blood was frantically trying to get a blood pressure reading on me, I waited for her to say something but she didn't.

Looking back I realise that there were a few things wrong with the whole equation.

• Why was I not suspected for ectopic pregnancy when I had showed at the clinic with abdominal pain down my right side?
• The clinic is not equipped with a trans vaginal ultrasound, so an abdominal ultrasound was used. The midwife admitted to me she did not know how to use the function to date the foetus properly.
• I was not screened to rule out the possibility of ectopic pregnancy.
• I was not told that the abdominal ultrasound is not accurate enough to rule out early complications, why wasn't i advised to see a doctor on the mainland as soon as possible?
• The nurse that was in the room when I had my initial scan meant that she was not immediately suspecting an ectopic pregnancy when she saw me on the night I ruptured, which delayed critical treatment time.

The surgeon that saved my life would not discharge me from hospital in the event that I went back home. She had no confidence in the treatment that I had received. At the time I was just happy to be alive. I was healing really well, I had my mum with me for support. I was grateful that I had survived an emergency that given the chance I had lived in another country I would have died. When I was ready, I went back to the community.

Whilst I had been in hospital my husband had been confronted by our friendly neighbour, the nurse who wasn't on call when his wife was dying. She had tried to tell him in a round about way that the clinic had nothing to do with what had happened to me, and that these things happen all the time. She suspected that I had obviously been having twins. That was the only explanation. My husband had already been told by me that the HCG levels in my blood were not high enough to warrant twins. He wasn't very obliging when she was trying to convince him of this. He got mad and in turn she told everyone in the health facility that no one was to communicate with us.

So on my arrival back to the community, not one of the health workers made any contact with me.Not even eye contact. They walked away from me in the street. Turned their heads when I walked past them. I was desperate to work out why when the nurse who had treated me on the night it happened came to my house and explained everything.

She had been told by management to have no contact with myself or my husband. The only contact i knew of was between my surgeon and the midwife who scanned me. My surgeon told me what the midwife had said to her."She said she had done the best she could with what she had at the time."

Interestingly enough though the clinic had an obstetrician come out and look at the ultrasound machine. She had told the staff that the machine is in good working order, it isn't really useful as a diagnostic tool or dating scanner because it doesn't pick up any details until 8 weeks gestation.
When the nurse told me this, I was speechless. This machine had been used as a diagnostic tool and it had been used as a dating scanner even though the midwife told me she wasn't able to use that function. I explained to the nurse that it really isn't good enough considering it isn't accurate enough until 8 weeks gestation and I ruptured at 7 weeks and 2 days. Most women rupture between weeks 7 and 8.

All three obstetricians I saw during my stay said that I would be able to get pregnant again, "but please don't get pregnant in an aboriginal community again."

Now that I have spent time researching ectopic pregnancies I have realised just how scary that statement is. Aboriginal women are at a higher risk of ectopic pregnancy than non indigenous Australians, due to the higher percentage of chlamydia, smoking and health problems within these communities. If the government is going to fund outback midwifery to be responsible for these pregnant women living in remote Australia then they should either be equipped with the appropriate resources or be able to guide the individual to the place where they can be treated as such.

The health workers continued to hide from me until I packed up and moved away, but my husband still works there in order to pay for the house I live in so that I can get better mentally. He is still treated with hostility to this day. I was grateful to be alive, but now im angry and bitter that they could treat me and my family this way because they cant face the fact they were negligent. They are just waiting to be investigated and to see if i take it any further. I havent at this stage. I just want to be me again. But every so often i think about what I have lost, and how close my family came to losing me and I get wild. I havent gone back to work, I still dont sleep properly, I still suffer from pain and for the first time in a long time I am stressed about money.

Money.....something the clinic is smothered in. They are drowning in it. I was getting sick of hearing about how much they get paid for call outs and there clicky little network. Their snide little comments about the locals and there pathetic example of a "health clinic" The icing on the cake was the award they received for"nursing and midwifery excellence." WHAT?? HOW?? WHERE?? on the cruise ship??

If remote health clinics are going to staff midwives to work with women in early pregnancy then they need to have the proper equipment for diagnosing ectopic pregnancy.In this instance a top of the range trans vaginal ultrasound would set the clinic back around $20,000. including training the midwife to use it. I hate to think what it cost to save me, with the careflight helicopter, the 3 surgical teams on call waiting for me to arrive, the 4 hour surgery, the medications and the aftercare. It would be costing the government more than that in maintenance fees to mow their lawn every month.

Something inside of me is telling me to face them and make them own up to their negligence. This has affected every aspect of my life and someone needs to acknowledge it. A simple "Im sorry Jane, we should have told you to go to another doctor sooner. We are so happy to see you are alive though" would have been sufficient. But now...I have a sneaking suspicion it may take more than just an apology.....

What do you think? Should I be content with being alive and leave it at that? or should I pursue this in court and make them answerable to their actions or lack there of? Im interested to hear it because Im struggling to to work out the right thing to do?

The journey back to me

I have on occasion joked with my husband that when something happens that upsets me, for example the day our pool pump, air conditioner and fridge blew up I said to him that "It felt like a tiny piece of my soul had snapped off and died." On the morning I woke up to find out I had lost my baby a chunk of my soul broke off and left me laying there totally incapable of recognising myself. I didn't look like me when I looked in the mirror, I didn't sound like me when I spoke, I didn't feel like me physically,mentally or spiritually.

When I went to the shower I wouldn't look in the mirror, when I walked around the ward I wouldn't look for my reflection, when I did see my reflection I didn't recognise it. It was a total out of body experience on every level. I hadn't just lost my baby, I had lost me too.

There were a few contributing factors at the time. The surgery, like most surgeries left me feeling like I had been hit by a succession of buses. Double decker ones at that. The swelling in my legs made me feel like a baby elephant that had gone all homo errectus on the planet. I was so embarrassed I had the choice of a male nurse or my husband to shower me...hmmm.....it was a toss up let me tell you. Do I go with the guy I don't know, who doesn't care and in a couple of weeks will never have to see again, or do I go with the guy who loves me immensely, who still looks scared at the thought of losing me and who can compare this monstrosity of a body to the one he married merely 6 months earlier? Well as far as hubby was concerned there was no choice, another bit of my soul snapped off and died.

One day my husband said to me he was surprised I had any pieces left. I couldn't help but wonder, how much of "me" was left behind? Where had I gone and was I ever coming back.

After my recovery the knee jerk reaction was buying a property on the mainland. One that we cant afford, had to borrow up to the eyeballs for and well to be honest is falling apart at the seams.My son names the houses we have lived in, the new house, the blue house and now he calls our house, "the rusty old house"  I was shocked, we have lived in some shocking houses in appalling environments and he calls the one house that we have actually financially invested in "the rusty old house" I understand that our 4 year old doesn't envision the potential my husband and I saw in this house when we bought it. I was pretty young when I learnt the lesson, "don't try and fix someone with potential when they cant see it themselves"

 My house doesn't see its potential, my house has been hit by a succession of buses.  I'm starting to believe that our house is a reflection of me. We repair, patch and recover what we can with what little resources we have and just when we think we are moving forward we fall 3 steps behind. Its not my imagination and I'm not over exaggerating which I have been known to do. With reference to the fridge pool and air conditioner earlier on, this is not a joke.All 3 blew up in one day!! We called in the electrician believing that there must have been a surge through the house.It couldn't possibly have been a coincidence, we couldn't possibly be that unlucky could we? Yep....it was and we can!!

I was the one stupid enough one day to mention that the only room in this house that doesn't need work is the toilet. Within a few days the cistern fell off. I ask myself what is going on? I ask my husband, to which the reply is just a shake of the head and a lie down.

I was beginning to be consumed by all the events surrounding me. I felt like I was picked up and placed on a shelf,out of the way so that everything else could be dealt with. I didn't have the time to deal with me, everything else is falling apart. My healing can wait, my grieving can wait, my soul can wait, I can wait!

Truth is...you don't wait. In actual fact you fall to bits and wonder why everything around you is in tatters. My sister refers to it as "the universe poking its finger in your eye" I knew I wasn't myself but i wasn't going to admit to anyone let alone myself that I wasn't coping.

My Mum bit the bullet and wrote a card to the angry beast that used to be me, and dared to broach the subject of "therapy" I was angry, I wanted to slap her across the face and tell her if anyone needed therapy it was her. Which in a lot of ways is true however, when I took a deep breath and thought about it, godammit she was right, again. It doesn't matter how many times it has happened or how right she is it always shits me. So even though I knew she was right it still took another 4 weeks before I would talk to her about it.

I caught up with an old friend who has since become a reiki practitioner. She told me Reiki was really good for treating post traumatic stress which is what I diagnosed myself with after searching my symptoms on the internet.As you do! God knows I'm not going to a doctor, well for one I have a few major trust issues after what happened to me in the beginning and two I have a major phobia of anti depressants.(which doesn't make any sense I know because they are used to rid the mind of phobias)  can anyone hear Alannis in the background singing "Isn't it ironic??"

So.....I booked in with a reiki practitioner. After one session I felt more positive in my outlook. I didn't have a panic attack for 8 days which had been a daily occurrence up until then.I slept through the night. I suddenly had a much more positive outlook on everything (including the house), I felt safe and hadn't had the urge to bawl my eyes out at all for the first time since my surgery.

I have had 2 sessions now, and both times I have had a very positive response. I recommend contacting a local reiki practitioner if you are on a journey of healing yourself. I didn't think it would work for me but it has made a huge difference to my life in such a short period of time.

I would love to try for another baby,but I am reluctant to start until I feel like I have healed from what has happened to me. I need to feel like a whole person again before I can honestly say I am ready for a baby. Its hard knowing that my chances of conceiving are much lower than what they were before my ectopic pregnancy and the chances of another ectopic are quite high. (15% chance) Tic Toc ....   Tic Toc ....

This is the start of my journey back to me. Its a slow start, Ive come across a few red lights and round-abouts along the way but I'm giving it a red hot go regardless. I am determined and willing to do anything to put all of my pieces back together.

We came home yesterday to the sound of a waterfall streaming off the side of our roof. It turns out the hot water system blew up while we were out looking for a new toilet. "No way you say?" Oh Yes way....yes....way!!!!!!So its sponge baths for the next few nights until we can afford a plumber. What was that? Did I hear another piece of my soul just snap off ?

Even though it feels as though the universe permanently has its finger in my eye, I will try to be positive and believe that everything will be okay.
Please let me know your coping mechanism? What advice were you given that helped you to heal? Please suggest something for me to do to help me on my journey!


Think pink

Janey

To grieve or not to grieve an ectopic pregnancy?

I went back to hospital for my post surgery check up with the Obstetrician a week after discharge. He informed me that my HCG levels had dropped accordingly, he removed my staples, he noticed that I was experiencing more than just a bit of discomfort so he prescribed me some more medication and then he referred to my notes.

He asked me if I had been given any information about the procedure. I had been given a lot of information about what had happened, but I didn't know the technical jargon. The name of the procedure, what its called to have your tube removed etc etc...so he informed me that I had received an emergency laparotomy and a salpingectomy, where the surgeon had no choice but to remove the right tube. All of the tissue had been removed, all be it large amount of tissue and he was confident that with the drop in my HCG levels there would be no further complications.

Tissue? A surprisingly large amount of tissue? I sometimes wonder if the tissue looked like this?

I remember my response was "my family has a history of big babies" and he just looked at me and smiled. He hoped to see me again, next time with a baby in my uterus.

I wonder if medically a baby is only referred to as a baby if it is viable. At seven weeks and two days my embryo had 10 fingers ten toes and a pumping heart. There wasn't anything wrong with the embryo, it was just in the wrong place at the wrong time.

I put pressure on myself to treat this entire incident like I have stacked it on a flight of stairs. Stand up, brush myself off, make sure I'm physically okay, thank everyone around me who helped me (rather than standing there pissing themselves laughing) and go home and wait for the bruises. Its not like that though. Apart from the fact what happened to me would not win a prize on funniest home videos, it hurts like hell that what could have been didn't happen.

Ive read that when women experience an ectopic pregnancy some mourn for the baby and others do not refer to it or think of it as a baby at all. Im somewhere in between. Having a beautiful 4 yr old boy helps I think. It would be much harder if the ectopic had been my first pregnancy. I have days where I think about all the different combinations mine and my husbands chromosomes could create and what our baby would have looked like. Then I have other days where I just feel lucky to be alive and have the ability to hop back on the horse and try again. Its bazaar.

 Which led me to the question, what is grief anyway?

Jana Rubenstein, M.Ed., LPC says, " Grief is the label for the set of emotional, cognitive, behavioural and physical reactions that are seen following the death of a loved one. Normal grief responses may include denial, emotional numbing, anger, rage, rushes of anxiety (pangs), sadness, fear, confusion, difficulty sleeping, regression in children, stomach upset, loss of appetite, "hysterical materialisation"  and many other potential symptoms. These symptoms are similar to those often seen in the acute post-traumatic period.



Yep....that sound like me.Yesterday was tough. My husband was cooking up a ginger beer home brew and I was sitting in the shed watching him prep for bottling when I saw all of our baby gear. Pram, high chair, jolly jumper, bassinet, cot, baby bath ahhhhh..I don't avoid it.I know its there, and it hasn't bothered me before. Its not new, it all belonged to my son but for some reason it touched a nerve and the tears began to fall. I felt pathetic. Just when I think I'm dealing with it all I lose it. Ill be going great for a week then "Boom" back to the crying board. Ive been told this is what grief does.  I don't understand though, why am I grieving something that was hardly a blip on the existence radar? Solution? I took a pair of garden shears and hacked at my garden. I thought maybe I am grieving the loss of my fallopian tube and grieving the loss of my overall fertility.I took a few slices off my arms and legs with the pesty bougainvillea but I felt better afterwards. I think I needed a bit of grounding and gardening is fantastic for the soul. I surrounded myself in green, the colour of the heart chakra which coincidentally is the chakra directly effected by grief.

If you have had an ectopic pregnancy, please let me know if you experienced or are still experiencing grief. Do you have any tips for overcoming grief to share?

I will not let this loss consume me however it has changed me and I'm determined to make this change for the better.

Today is another day.

Think pink

Janey

All of my eggs are in one basket...dammit!!

Does anyone know what happens to the eggs in the ovary that no longer have a yellow brick road ( or fallopian tube) ?? Do the eggs still mature in that ovary, only to be spat out into the abyss called the abdominal cavity? Waiting to be reabsorbed by our bodies?

All I know is now that I have had my right fallopian tube removed, I suffer from the worst symptoms at ovulation time and period time. Its awful. My bowel seems to go on holiday for a few days, followed by chronic indigestion, waves and waves of nausea and horrendous headaches to boot. I get hot flushes and I am so proud of myself at the end of the day if I didn't just stay in bed like a beached whale, drowning in my own tears and dribble. Hmm...pretty picture! I don't know anyone else who has had this happen to them so I'm not sure if its normal or not. Its hard to get a sympathetic ear from Hubby when I'm groaning and moaning around the house for what feels like half the month.

I'm always reluctant to look up symptoms and ailments on the internet. Ive done that a few times before with other things and have gone to bed convinced I am dying and it turns out its just an ulcer. Hypochondriacs must have a field day on this thing. However looking back, if I had known the symptoms of ectopic pregnancy and had calculated my own personal risk then I would have had a neon arrow above my head saying "ticking time bomb here"

 I trusted the health professionals who assessed me and now all of my eggs are in one basket. I know it isnt true but it doesnt matter Im still convinced that Ive lost half of my tubes, therefore Ive also lost half of my chances of conceiving. Im now 50% fertile, I have 50% chance of falling pregnant. HALF A CHANCE! Is that how it feels for anyone else???
One part of my brain is telling me, "no, thats not right.you know that the other ovary kicks into overdrive and pumps out more eggs meaning that your chances have only slightly gone down. The internet told you and the internet doesnt lie!!" While another part of my brain is saying," oh yeh right as if.people just say that so that we dont stress about it, because if we knew we only had half a chance and were stressing, then our chances would plummet to zero. More to the point is..I dont know. Noone knows and thats what makes it tough.

My 4 yr old son begs me for babies what seems like everyday. I'm sure it boils down to children's intuition and their remarkable ability of honing in on our weaknesses and mirroring them back to us.  He says "Ive been waiting forever Mum, whens the baby coming. Can we go to the post office and pick up the baby today? i have noone to play with I neeeeed a baby brother!" Ouch ouch ouch. Some days I laugh others I cry.I used to write it all down but now I tell him it upsets me if he keeps going on about it. Today I cried,I have to remind myself he is only 4.

Just like when he had a shower with his Dad the other night. I said "oh aren't you lucky I hardly ever get to shower with Dad." To which Dad replied "well you never ask" and my son said "that's because your a fat mumma" Then I heard the whistle as Hubby inhaled through tight lips and had a face like he had received a swift kick to the nuts. I could have got upset, but as my lower lip began to pout I remembered earlier that day I had been talking about the consequences of eating too many easter eggs and it occurred to me we had talked about getting "fat" and I reminded myself, that's right.....he is 4 and lets not forget how many easter eggs went down the hatch.

Maybe its just that time of year, with all this focus on chocolate eggs somehow I have centred that focus on my own eggs. Has anyone else blurred these lines?

MY EGGDALA

This egg was hand carved by my very talented and beautiful sister. I wish I had just half as much talent as she does. She is amazing. Awe inspiring artist, wonderful mother, understanding and loving partner, cracking lawyer, kitchen extraordinaire and I just feel lucky getting the opportunity to know her and love her for my whole life.

 Ive been using this picture as my "eggdala" Its like a mandala but for my ova. If your ovaries need a soft nudge in the right direction, take a minute to look deep into my eggdala, soothe your soul and focus on clearing your fallopian tubes. Use it to focus your energy inside of yourself and imagine your entire reproductive system glowing in white light.

Deep breaths, in through your nose out through your mouth. Feel yourself begin to relax and allow yourself to let go.

Repeat after me: I want it to happen and it will happen because I can see it happening and it looks great!

Think pink!

Janey

A few home truths...a little too close to home

During my hospital stay I was reminded a few times that what had happened to me, doesn't happen very often. I was struggling to move around by myself after the laparotomy. A nurse commented one day and said, "come on love.Its day 2 you should be moving by now" my response was sobbing on the edge of the bed. She continued "Got to love keyhole surgery" I saw red and lifted up my nightie. I showed her the bandage covering my staples from my belly button to well below my pubic bone and said "how many keys do you have that are this big?" She was truly shocked, she had read ectopic pregnancy on my file and had "assumed" I had been diagnosed early, possibly treated with methotrexate and come in to have the embryo removed through keyhole surgery.
It was interesting seeing the looks on the nurses faces when I explained I had received 8 units of blood during the whole ordeal.Which equated to a full blood transfusion. One nurse said to me," wow..so not one blood cell in your body is yours!"  This opened up a whole other can of worms with my recovery. I struggled with that little chestnut for weeks.

I remember flying in to Darwin on the careflight helicopter and the paramedic saying to me we had just landed and the paparazzi were waiting. I obviously had a confused look on my face because she explained. "Jane this doesn't happen very often anymore, a lot of people are going to want to look at you okay?" She was right. That room was chockers. I remember looking into each of their eyes and begging to be put under. "put me under, please put me under"

During my recovery I kept hearing the same word over and over and over. "Lucky" Which got me thinking, has anyone like me died from this?  Why was it such a circus in that theatre? Why did everyone want to have a look at me? Is what happened to me that rare? Was I truly lucky? I didn't feel lucky. I had sore breasts, I was swollen all over from all the fluids pumped into me, I had a scar bigger than my c section scar and no baby. Everyone around me was just so happy that I was alive that noone grieved the loss for my baby. I couldn't draw in a breath without my chest aching,my throat hurting my lip trembling and my eyes watering. No...I didn't feel lucky at all. Then I found it. An article on the internet about the Campbell Family.This is a photo of them.

Veronica Campbell, 38, died in December 2008,from an ectopic rupture. The article I found this in stated,

 "Her condition, in which an embryo develops outside the womb, is no longer considered life threatening in Australia, but Ms Campbell was caught in a small hospital without the facilities to deal with the emergency. "

"Ms Campbell, had been bleeding heavily and allegedly waited up to 4 hours to be transported from Cobram hospital to a larger facility in Shepparton, 60 kilometres away, where she could have had life saving surgery in the maternity ward."

There is no mention of how many weeks pregnant she was at the time of the rupture, and I'm interested to know if Veronica ever got to have a dating scan. I understand there is no maternity ward at the local hospital, I wonder if there is an ultrasound facility?

I was of the opinion that I had been treated unprofessionally and negligently by my local government health facility. But this family has suffered the most severe case of negligence. I look at this photo and I see my little family.  I'm proud of Mr Campbell, refusing to let anyone brush it under the carpet. I don't know how he does it. I admire his determination to stand up and fight when a lot of people would just lay down.

It scares me that women still die in Australia from ectopic rupture. It had been the first death like this in 5 years in Australia.

In the last few months since my operation I have struggled with anxiety, post traumatic stress and been in limbo with a big black cloud called depression just hovering over my shoulders.Waiting for me to claim it, name it, face it and own it and I refuse to.

I understand the lucky part now. I get it.

Repeat after me.

I am safe, I am healthy, I am alive.

Think pink,

Janey

Where it began.

On the 12th of November, 2011 at three o'clock in the morning I regain consciousness in a hospital bed. Everything is blurry, I hear a friendly voice but moments later it all goes black again. I hear my name being called, I open my eyes to see an angel at the foot of my bed. She has a grey bob and glasses. She looks exhausted and somewhat angry. She tells me her name and says "You scared me Jane and I don't scare easily. You lost a lot of blood and needed a full transfusion.Ive contacted your husband and told him you are in recovery"
The logical part of my brain that was still able to function under copious amounts of morphine asked, "Is the baby okay?"

Living on a small island off the north coast of Australia has its limitations. Only two weeks earlier I had been to the health clinic to have my first scan. I had been experiencing pain down my right side. It wasn't constant, so it seemed to be of no concern. I hear the familiar fart sound as the cold gel is spurted on my abdomen. I look to the ceiling feeling that all too familiar pang of pain in my bladder.Just hoping I don't piss myself on the table when i hear " oh there it is.Right there.Yep it looks about 5 and a half weeks. Does that sound about right to you Jane? Can you see that there? I can even make out a little heart beat."

I could not see a thing. But then again, I'm not a health professional. So with a sigh of relief I wipe the gel off and get up off the table. I walked home, eager to tell my husband that our four year old son was wrong! We were not expecting twins!

The baby was not okay. The baby was taken out, along with my right fallopian tube. I had experienced an ectopic rupture.A laparotomy.  I was left empty, with staples from my belly button down to an inch above my lady bits. Lost in the confusion, alone and petrified.

My bum began to itch and suddenly I remembered. It had only been a few hours since I had said good bye to my husband, on the bitumen runway at the tiny airport on the island. With my Lily white ass hanging out the back of the gown they had put me in, prepped for surgery and being eaten alive by sand flies. I was not allowed to move my arms. My husband kneels down behind me and rubs my bum for me. I had said goodbye and I love you for what felt like the last time. I asked him to remind our son of who I am. "don't let him forget me."  The expression on his face when I said this was "Jane, your such a drama queen" but laying there on the tarmac while a paramedic and a doctor manually pumped two units of blood into my collapsed veins, while trying to register a blood pressure so that I could fly made it pretty clear to him and me, I was dying.

As fate had it there was only room for one on the helicopter.Which meant the agony of choosing between coming with me or staying with my son was taken out of the equation. I thanked God. Its only happened 4 times in my 32 years of life. I thanked God when my son survived his birth, I thanked god when my mother pulled through a very late diagnosis of pneumonia sepsis I thanked God when my plane landed after some air turbulence had convinced me i was plummeting to my death and I thanked God that my husband didn't have to watch me die.

I don't know how many times in passing Ive heard that we soil ourselves just before we die and thought nothing of it. I was laying still, arms wide apart like I was being crucified and humming in tune with the sound of the careflight helicopter, consumed by the excruciating pain and an overwhelming sense of pissed offness that i hadn't got life insurance when suddenly it happened and there was nothing i could do, but cry. The interesting thing was I didn't panic, your brain needs blood to panic and there wasn't enough of that going around.

It is scary, when the surgeon who has just saved your life looks you in the eye and says, "some people would say, it just wasn't your time"

It wasn't my time, I just wish it hadn't been such a fine line though.

This is my journey. I don't always move forward, sometimes i move backwards.But I'm learning that that is okay. Its all part of the healing. The panic attacks, the nightmares, the fears, the anxiety, the irrational thoughts and the constant wishing I was the person I was before this happened to me. Before my world was shattered.

I still have a lot of questions and I wont stop looking for answers. This should never have happened the way that it did. Ive worked out why, now I just have to work out how to change it.

 Ectopic pregnancies happen in 1 of every 100 pregnancies in Australia alone. Women are still dying from ectopic ruptures, in Australia. This doesn't need to happen at all anymore. The sad thing is, most women wont  be educated on ectopic pregnancy until they experience one themselves and that I am truly sorry for. If an ectopic pregnancy diagnosis, treatment or rupture has led you here please share with me your stories so that we can educate other women. I wish you peace, love and healing. You are not alone, you are safe.

Think pink.

Janey