Not long ago I had one of the hardest times of my life dealing with pregnancy loss, more specifically an ectopic pregnancy, where the fertilised egg implants itself outside of the womb, and therefore the egg will not develop into a baby. It mostly occurs in the fallopian tubes, but the egg can implant in other places; I had an abdominal ectopic pregnancy (in the Pouch of Douglas), which is very rare. When the egg implants in the tube it can cause life-threatening internal bleeding if the egg continues to grow and ruptures the fallopian tube.
It was very personal and painful to talk about it for a while, but I feel ready now to share my story and raise awareness about pregnancy loss. I have done a very open and honest (yet, long) video, pouring my heart out about my experience and talking about how having an ectopic pregnancy made me feel physically and emotionally. If you would like to watch this video, press the play button below or click here.
Thankfully, my story had a lovely happy ending with the birth of our rainbow baby, James, but through this video I want to raise awareness about ectopic pregnancies, and how dangerous they can be if not treated with some urgency. Pregnancy loss, in general, is something that people tend not to talk about very candidly; understandably so, because the pain sometimes is too much and talking about it makes it real, but I have found that talking about it helps me heal and try to make some sense of this whole thing.
[youtube=https://youtu.be/LfxT22KQFrw&w=1080]
When I was dealing with my ectopic pregnancy, information was sparse and I had not even heard of this term before being told it could be happening to me. I turned to Google and YouTube to find people who had gone through the same thing, in the hope that I would find some comfort in knowing that it wasn’t just me, but there weren’t very many videos and posts about the subject. That made me realise I had to share my story and, hopefully, my video will help someone who is going through an ectopic pregnancy.
Pregnancy loss can be a very lonely place in our minds and in our hearts; I remember spending many-a-night crying myself to sleep, and although I had an amazing support network, I felt like people didn’t really know what to say to me when I talked about pregnancy loss, so instead of facing an awkward conversation, I kept my feelings to myself and tried to put on a brave face.
It took me a long time to heal; some days I still catch myself thinking about what I went through in disbelief. But having had our lovely little baby boy was the best thing that could have happened to us! It gave me hope that I wasn’t doomed and that I was still able to have that family that I so wanted!
If you’re still waiting for your rainbow baby after a loss, my thoughts go to you. Stay strong, stay positive.
If you have had an ectopic pregnancy or any type of pregnancy loss, and you want to share your story, please feel free to use the comments section, and share this video if you think it may be helpful to someone you know, who’s going through pregnancy loss.
We’re all here to support one another!
