Carla

My story began in August 1999 when I became pregnant and it turned out to be ectopic. I almost ruptured my tube, had emergency surgery, had NO idea what was happening. The father was busy meeting his 4 month old twins from a prior relationship. So, I had no support at that moment either. I was too traumatized to even begin to process what had happened to me. A year later, I met my husband to be. We were engaged and in less than 4 weeks before our wedding day, I had the longest period of my life. It lasted 11 days, but I was so wrapped up in wedding planning, that I wasn’t keeping a close watch until I passed a really, REALLY, large clot. I went to the doctor and, yep, I was pregnant. They did an ultrasound and found a uterine miscarriage and it’s ectopic twin…. That was June 2002, when I had my second pelvic laparotomy, and, a d and c for the miscarriage.

In February 2003, I had ectopic three. November 2003 was ectopic four. Both of them were pregnancies achieved via clomid. One was another surgery, the other resolved through methotrexate.

In 2004 my ob/gyn referred me to the fertility clinic where I underwent my first IVF transfer. That resulted in my daughter, who born March 2005. A perfect, super tiny girl.

In an attempt to expand our family, we underwent IVF frozen transfer number one, but it resulted in a failed chemical pregnancy in May 2006. IVF frozen transfer number two was in October 2006. That was ectopic number 5, and it was also when I had BOTH tubes removed and clamped.

In September 2007, we tried again and we got what was termed ‘one for the medical books,’ with a one in THIRTY MILLION chance of occurring. IVF number four (the second fresh one) resulted in a positive, however, there was no sign of an embryo in my uterus. The conclusion was another chemical pregnancy. However, a week after that ultrasound, I was rushed to a hospital with internal bleeding. There was almost 3 litres of blood in my peritoneal cavity from a ruptured ectopic embryo. The one in 30 million odds were mine. The embryo had migrated through a microscopic tear in my fully clipped fallopian tubes, and had implanted on the external anterior wall of my uterus. Then it had ruptured. The laparoscopic surgery turned into a major laparotomy so the doctors could find the source of the bleed. I ended up in hospital for 5 days and to this day have no feeling in my lower abdomen. Plus a hip to hip scar. Yay. Then, I was sad enough to try again October of 2008 and May of 2012. There were two more chemical pregnancies. And I was done.

The end result? I have an amazing 18 year old daughter by marriage, I have an amazing 10 year old.miracle IVF daughter, and I have far too many physical emotional and mental scars…..

That’s my story.