Nearly 8 months ago, I posted about my ectopic pregnancy and how I was trying to remain positive after my operation to remove "our Pip" and my fallopian tube.
We'd been told that I would still be able to conceive with my remaining tube, but that it may take a little longer - my fertility had reduced by around 30% as a result of the operation. We were also told that once a woman has had 1 ectopic pregnancy, the odds of her having another greatly increase - from one in eighty, to one in ten. Scary odds, but what would Linford do? PMA, that's what.
I won't bore you with the ins and outs of trying to get pregnant (pun intended...) but let me just tell you that the saying "relax and it will happen" is just irritating bullshit when you're trying to conceive, especially after a loss.
Long story short, we didn't relax - but we tracked, we timed and we tried, and it worked! On 8th April, I had a positive result on a pregnancy test. This line was much darker than any of the lines I'd got with Pip, so we dared to hope this one had made it all the way to my uterus...
Anyone who's been through an ectopic has to have an early scan at 6 weeks along, to check that the new pregnancy has made it into the right place. Ours was booked in for 2 weeks later, and so the wait began. That fortnight was a weird one. Pleased that we've mounted hurdle one and got pregnant again, but scared that Piptwo is just as lazy as their predecessor and has decided to stick around in my one remaining tube. Which would be pretty shit. Meaning more surgery, another failed pregnancy and drastically reduced fertility. So, yeah - it was a long two weeks waiting for the dildo cam moment.
Going for that first scan appointment was a very deja vu morning. We sat in the same waiting room as we had 5 months earlier, filling out the same forms and listening to the same radio station. We walked into the same room to get scanned so it was quite a relief to have a different sonographer doing the honours! She was brilliant - no messing around and just got straight on with it as she knew we didn't want to wait around making small talk. Right away she said "there it is! In the uterus!" which was such a relief. Second hurdle jumped! After a nervy few minutes while she poked around looking for a twin pregnancy (either in the right place or the wrong) she confirmed there was just one embryo, where it should be, and printed off a photo of a blurry tadpole for us to proudly show off to family.
So here we are now, 10 weeks and 2 more scans later and daring to hope this one might be the keeper. Piptwo is making themselves known - giving me a pot belly that makes me look like I've been hitting the mars bars hard (clue: I have) and an unquenchable thirst for milk. I'm 16 weeks today, and due on 16th December. This is our official "coming out" post - I'm pregnant!
I want to end by telling anyone else who's gone through a #misCOURAGE to keep hoping, keep shining. We'll get there, if we believe. PMA.
