My infertility story after the Ectopic Pregnancy. Part 1 Diagnosis and Research

Has anyone else had a hard time falling pregnant after having an Ectopic pregnancy?

When I had mine all the Docs and specialist Gynos said losing a tube can effect your fertility but only minimally. It decreases your chances of falling pregnant by a measly few percents.

After 2 years of actively "trying" to have another baby...without success our hearts were breaking.

I thought it might be the fear of having another ectopic that was subconsciously sabotaging our efforts. I feared that my mind was somehow convincing my body to not fall pregnant. I had all the gadgets too. I bought hundreds of ovulation sticks off eBay. I became obsessed with peeing on sticks. I bought a maybe baby and spat on that thing religiously....nothing.

I decided it was time to call in the big guns. I went to a fertility specialist. He was a 2 hour drive away. I decided it was worth the 4 hour long trip to investigate what was going on in my body.

Long story short...it was the beginning of a nightmare. This Dr was an IVF fertility specialist unbeknown to me. My initial tests came back within the week. I trecked out to see him again, This time later in the evening. I was by myself and was not prepared for the onslaught of disappointment that was about to smash me in the guts.

I had no idea how much blood tests could reveal about fertility.
I had no idea that fertility specialists put so much weight in the numbers that these tests reveal.

I sat in the chair and he told me that unfortunately I wouldn't qualify for IVF.

I didn't understand why he was talking about IVF at all considering I only went to him seeking answers to why I was having a hard time falling pregnant in the first place.

My Follicle Stimulating Hormone  (FSH) was 15. Slightly elevated for my age on day 2 of the menstrual cycle apparently. This meant that IVF drugs are less likely to work successfully.

Oh ok....

My Anti Mullerian Hormone...( AMH) This hormone is an indicator of how many eggs you have left...roughly. My levels...0.42. This put me in the menopausal category. I was 32 years of age.

It was then explained that my eggs were so degenerate that in order to fall pregnant I would need to find an egg donor. My chances of falling pregnant naturally were around 3%...at a rough guess.

Premature Ovarian Failure

Sign the dotted line...cough up $210...and a curt "Good Luck" as I await my receipt.

I was gutted. I couldn't see through my tears to the front door it was so embarrassing. The admin lady helped me to my car. How was I going to drive 2 hours home...at night? When my world had been crushed. How was I going to tell my husband?

What was happening to my body. Did this massive hormone problem happen before or after the ectopic. Did this explain the ectopic? Because my eggs were rotten anyway?

I was Crushed...

I cried and cried till my eyelids had blisters on them. I began a deep dark decent into a tough depression that effected my relationship with my 6 year old son and almost ended my marriage over the next few months.

I kept hearing "get a second opinion"
why....? the numbers don't lie. I researched it on the internet. It didn't look good. The positive stories of falling pregnant naturally with my kinda numbers were lets just say...rare!

This took over my life. It consumed me. Every minute. Every day.
I started having hot flushes.
I started getting menstrual migraines that would leave me bedridden for days.
I started going grey.
I developed a nasty case of GURD
I suffered from extreme anxiety that left me nauseous most of the time.
I was in hell!
& It seemed everyone I knew was pregnant!

I hated my life.
I hated my body.

I decided I would try a gluten free diet. I had read somewhere along the way it can help with hormonal imbalances. I bought these books.

It was a fantastic relief to me to realise that I was not alone in my suffering. I decided that my so called Dr was a twat and the only person in my life that could change anything was me! This book gave me the strength to combat what I was up against and regain my power. I considered myself educated on the subject.
Every Dr I visited tried to put me on the contraceptive pill. Every single one. None of them would listen to me. I didn't want to go on a synthetic form of the hormones that were already reeking havoc on my body. Its the only thing that will help they told me....All lies. Help with what...breast cancer!? ovarian Cancer!?

I started researching Natural alternatives. In Australia at the time it was difficult to find a Doctor that would write a script for Bioidentical Progesterone. My Mum had worked with a pharmacist who was interested in the potential growth in demand of natural bioidentical hormones for men and women. Considering Big Pharma don't bother with "natural" medication because they can not be patented. Lawley Pharmaceuticals manufacture their own Bioidentical Hormones in Perth Western Australia. After a quick phone interview it was determined I was Oestrogen Dominant and low in progesterone. I was referred to 1 of 2 GP's that prescribed this medication in Australia at the time. I was told to use the cream for 3 months and review. I trialled the cream for three months and decided to continue for another 3 months. I ad no adverse side effects. I was no longer clinically depressed. I started taking an interest in life. The hot flushes stopped, I was sleeping again and I was smiling without desperately trying to.

As a family we decided to take a long bike ride every evening. If we weren't gong to ride then it was a bush walk along the river. I started to breath again...

I was so grateful that the horrible symptoms of this Premenopause were subsiding that I could finally accept that I needed to be grateful for what I do have and stop obsessing over what I cant have.

I threw out all of the ovulation sticks, I threw out the maybe baby, I threw out the Ovulation thermometer and I deleted every fertility chart and tracker off my phone. I had 2 nieces due in the next few months and I was going to embrace these babies and rejoice in the gift of motherhood that I was lucky enough to have experienced. It broke my heart reading blog after blog and forums of women who have never had the chance to have their own child. I needed to move on. I needed to let go of this hatred that had consumed me for 3 years.

I started meditating. I started to learn new skills. I shifted my focus....to me! I am a Remedial Massage therapist by trade and I hadn't touched a client since my son was born. So I opened a clinic in town. I started using my hands again. I got back to my roots of healing people. I met some beautiful people. Two of my clients had terminal cancer. When one of them passed away it floored me.This created a remarkable shift in my focus. I could no longer drown in self pity. I had a beautiful life under my nose...I needed to start seeing it!

As part of my insurance policy for massage therapy I need to participate in ongoing learning.  In one of my feeds the art of Mayan Abdominal Massage popped up. In order to practice on others, you must first learn how to do it for yourself. I was running out of time to get the points i needed for my insurance so I signed up. It was a 3 day course over the weekend in the city. Perfect...I would stay with friends and enjoy it. What I didn't realise at the time was that this simple act of squeezing in a last minute course to qualify for insurance would change my life....forever!

Please comment below and let me know your story. I'm interested to know if anyone else has suffered from Premature Ovarian Failure after an ectopic rupture? Has anyone else got levels like me and been successful in having a baby?

Thank you for reading...
next is...
Part 2: FSH and AMH mean diddly squat to me! Ive got my BFP!!!

7.2 weeks or bust!

Ectopic pregnancies aren't deadly, unless they get to the point where they rupture. If they get the chance to rupture and they burst a main artery then you are in some serious trouble. It the event of it rupturing slowly there is normally a small tear in the fallopian tube and it slowly leaks blood into the abdominal cavity. The mother is not going to feel well by any means, quite often there is referred pain in the shoulder tip and gastrointestinal upset.Vaginal blood loss is sometimes present however it does not have to be. A lot of ectopic ruptures at this stage are mistaken for gastroenteritis.

In the event of a full rupture, this happens very quickly. There is a massive bleed and the mother will feel faint, nauseous, feel a huge painful pressure in the abdomen and not mobile.It feels as though a bomb has exploded in your abdomen.Without medical intervention, death is a guarantee within hours.

The mean for a rupture is 7 weeks and 2 days pregnant. This accounts for all ruptures occurring between 4-12 weeks pregnant. A lot of the deaths from ectopic pregnancies are for women that didn't even know they were pregnant.

I ruptured at exactly 7 weeks and 2 days. Ive always thought of myself as average and in this instance I was right on the money.

If you are pregnant and have any discomfort in your abdomen. Get a trans vaginal scan to make sure everything is Okay.

If you suffered from an ectopic rupture let me know how pregnant you were when it happened??

Thank you

Janey

My pain was in vain!

If you have read my post on What to do in the face of negligence? then you would understand that I am now facing a battle between myself and the Australian Government health department. There is currently an investigation being held at the community health clinic that I was originally "treated" in.

The community health clinic "the name of which I do not speak" misdiagnosed my ectopic pregnancy. The list of people and things to blame is so long its scary. So many things went wrong on so many levels. It was a disaster of mammoth proportions....(well for my right fallopian tube anyway.)

The staff work less than normal hospital hours, they are housed in lovely accommodation free of charge ,they have more holidays than teachers and they are remunerated generously with Australian tax payers money. Very few of them do their job properly and when I say properly I mean to the normal standard that any Australian would consider appropriate. A lot of them would disagree with my "opinions" of them and their situation but I "tell" it how I "know" it

Which begs the question... when you live in a remote indigenous community what choice do you have? I know the answer to that one......none!

A friend who still lives in this community rang us yesterday and told us that his pregnant wife had woken up in pain. She is 7 weeks pregnant and has cramping pains on her left side.He had tried to ring the health clinic 8 times...but it rang out. So he drove her there. She then waited to see a midwife, who promptly told her that what she was experiencing was normal and to go home and have paracetamol!

I asked them if she had got an early scan yet, she told me that she was booked in to see the obstetrician that was due in the community last month, but it was cancelled and she would have to wait another 2 weeks. This would be taking her up to 8 weeks pregnant. If she had an ectopic pregnancy, she would be past the threshold for rupturing at that stage.

We flew her to us and I took her to the hospital. She was white as a ghost and convulsing in pain. I thought the worst and to my relief so did the emergency department. She had presented to emergency with a positive pregnancy test and abdominal pain on one side, immediately ectopic pregnancy had to be ruled out. We waited for the ultrasound and to our relief the baby is fine, but she does have an extra large ovarian cyst which was possibly rupturing and this would explain the pain.

It has been just over 6 months since I was taken to that health clinics emergency room.Collapsed in shock and bleeding out rapidly. They knew what happened to me was preventable...there was no need for me to experience that amount of trauma if I had been treated "properly" Yet here they were...faced with a similar situation again and alas.....they failed. How can this clinic continue to be negligent...and yet still be tolerated, have tonnes of money thrown at it and better still "rewarded" for their efforts.

It makes me sick to my stomach to think that this department has learnt nothing from what happened to me. Its a tiny community....most pregnant women there refuse to go to the clinic because of what happened to me and theres little wonder why.

I have another month to wait for their response to the investigation.

If you have abdominal pain and are late for your period or have had a positive pregnancy test....I urge you to get an early pregnancy scan! If you have a trans vaginal ultrasound up to 85% of ectopics are diagnosed on the first visit.....the rest are diagnosed on the next. Please don't play Russian roulette with your body......

If you have been treated by a health care professional and you believe that you have been treated with negligence then I firmly suggest that you forward your story to the complaints commission located in your state. They will contact you and explain to you what will be done.They are independant of the local health department and the doctors and nurses commission. They will demand answers from the subjects that have lead to your complaint. It is against the law for them to not reply to the complaints commission.

Please follow the link to your local health complaints commission in your state or territory.

Tasmania
South Australia
Victoria
New South Wales
Queensland
Western Australia
Northern Territory

Thank you

Janey