Currently my body still thinks it's pregnant

by Carmen 

May 2016

As soon as we set our wedding date I was so excited. Not only was I marrying my best friend, but I was going to come off the pill that very day too so we could start trying for a baby. I had cancer when I was eight years old which resulted in one of my ovary’s being removed so I always had in the back of my mind that it wouldn’t be easy but still felt hopeful.

I didn’t know how long my cycles were going to be so when my first natural period came five weeks later I thought maybe that would be my cycles from now on. When I was a couple of days late the following cycle I got excited and thought this is it, so I did a test but it came back negative. I was gutted, I just knew I was pregnant, I felt it, so a couple of days later I went to see the nurse at the doctors. She tested again and it came back negative again and practically laughed in my face when I said I thought I was pregnant so soon after coming off the pill. I left the doctors so upset and confused but the test was negative so I couldn’t have been pregnant.

Two weeks later my period still hadn’t come but I had dull period pains and back ache for a week so every time I went to the loo I was expecting it to start. I decided to go back to the doctors where they did another pregnancy test which came out positive but I couldn’t get excited as they used the word ‘ectopic’ in the same sentence and phoned the hospital to let them know I was coming. I was devastated.

If it was ectopic and they had to operate that would be my remaining ovary gone, that would be it, no babies naturally

We arrived at the hospital and after them feeling round my stomach, they booked me in for an ultrasound the following morning. As you can imagine I didn’t sleep at all that night. We went for an ultrasound but as it was too early the scan didn’t show a lot so they decided to do blood tests. They said they didn’t think it was ectopic so I immediately felt better and so much more positive. This was it, we were finally going to be parents!

After a blood test and then another one 48 hours later I was told, three days after I found out I was pregnant, that I was having a miscarriage. It was the last thing to even cross my mind, I hadn’t even thought for a second that I would hear those words down the phone. I cried for what felt like days. A few days later the miscarriage happened naturally and I was relieved and couldn’t wait to start trying again. At least I knew I could get pregnant.

Month after month my cycles were all over the place and I kept getting hopeful that I was pregnant but the tests kept coming back negative. As I’d had a negative previously when I was actually pregnant I couldn’t give up hope and kept doing tests every other day and then my period would eventually arrive one or two weeks late. I must have spent a fortune on tests! Then seven months later, after starting up with the ovulation sticks again, I got my first smiley face and 3 weeks later I had a positive line on my test. We were so excited, but so nervous at the same time.

I couldn’t relax but I kept telling myself there’s no way life could be so cruel and put us through all that hurt again

Just before I was 7 weeks I had this horrible feeling that something was wrong and couldn’t shake it so I booked in for a private scan where we were told there was just a gestational sac. I knew straight away that I was going to miscarry again but I was sent to the hospital where the nurses tried to be positive and told me that I might have got my dates wrong. After a week of more blood tests and my HCG levels rising but not doubling, we were told I was miscarrying.

This time they didn’t want me to do it naturally so I had to go through the process of medical management. Again I was relieved when it all started to happen and after a few weeks I thought it was all over and I could try to move on.

I was asked to do a pregnancy test three weeks after the first day of my miscarriage and that if it was negative then I would be discharged. I did the test expecting it to be negative but it was positive so I had to go back and be re-scanned and there was a tiny bit of tissue left over, so currently my body still thinks it's pregnant. They don’t want to operate and its so tiny it might get missed so they’re waiting for it to come out naturally which could be weeks or even months. This means no period and no ovulating.

We’re hopefully going to start trying again in August when we’ve had lots of healthy eating and taking vitamins and completely cutting out alcohol. I’m so lucky to have such an amazing husband, friends and family to keep me positive and cheer me up. Some days are bad and I don’t feel like I’m coping, but others I’m excited and wanting to be positive about the future.

Surely the next baby has to stick!