Ectopic pregnancies

At first, I thought that this meant that I wasn’t pregnant. Who wouldn’t think that? I mean, there was no baby. Meaning no pregnancy, right? Well, that wasn’t the case. They brought in a trained clinician into the room and told me that my pregnancy could be ectopic. They explained that an ectopic pregnancy meant that my baby was growing in my fallopian tube. If the baby grew big enough, my fallopian tube would burst, and I could internally bleed and die. 

When I thought about everything that I had gone through, I didn’t think it could get worse. But it did. My chest felt heavy, my heart was racing. I know that it sounds cliche but I could feel every beat. I felt it in my head and in my veins. I wasn’t worried about me. I was worried that I needed to go to the ER, where I could catch COVID-19, and then get my entire family sick. I was worried that I needed to keep this pregnancy a secret to the point where I might die in the ER without my parents knowing that it was because I was pregnant until the doctors told them. I was afraid that I was never going to have the opportunity to tell them the truth. I was afraid that it would just be another added heartbreak that I’ve added to their lives.

The clinician told me they had to get my blood drawn to check my hormone levels. It was a Monday. That Wednesday I needed to go to LabCorp, a clinical laboratory, to get a second blood test to see whether my hormone levels increased. I did as I was told, but in the back of my mind, I was so anxious that I wasn’t doing my part in social distancing. I had to go to the hospital three times that week. Other than a mask, I didn’t really have any protection against the virus. 

My doctor called on Thursday saying that my hormone levels came back as normal. It meant that my pregnancy was normal, and the baby was just too small to see in the ultrasound. I made an appointment the next day to get a medical abortion. That day was Friday.