There are many people out there who suffer from infertility and who really want to have children. I can REALLY relate.. .. my heart goes out to you....

My First Pregnancy 
July 1990, my first pregnancy. Didn't know I was pregnant, just seemed to have an extended period until I passed some tissue about the size of my thumb. Pregnancy still hadn't entered into my thoughts.  I went to my OB who ran some tests and told me that I had experienced a miscarriage.  I wasn't too concerned because I wasn't trying to get pregnant and I only found out after the fact. 3 days later I was in the ER because during dinner my temperature started fluctuating from hot to cold, I had major cramping and I kept almost passing out. I told the admitting nurse that my OB said I had a miscarriage, and then some time later the doctor on duty (they didn't call my doctor on call) came to visit me. At this point it had been several hours of me lying on my back with a heat lamp between my legs (which helped with the cramping) and I was ready to go home.  The doctor didn't do any tests, just said he thought I had an infection and gave me antibiotics. I asked about the pain and he prescribed some painkillers. That was Friday the 13th.

I was "fine" for a while on those painkillers, but then 2 days later I couldn't even stand completely without passing out. I was back at my OB's office on Monday seeing a specialist. She said she believed I had a tubal pregnancy and explained the procedure they would be doing to determine this.  She said that under anesthesia she would put a probe into my abdomen via incisions in my navel and just below my bikini line.  She would look around and see if there was blockage in my tube and would try to remove if so;  if she couldn't remove it, then the tube would have to come out.  I had a good cry at that point because it was so much to process. A week prior I was healthy, biking everywhere and playing on the softball team and now something was wrong with me requiring surgery. I had the surgery 2 days later and when I awoke I was told that they removed my left fallopian tube because it had ruptured.   That was my first ectopic pregnancy. My first Angel.

First Miscarriage
December 1995: I was PMSing really bad (or so I thought) so I drank some Dong Quai tea as it is a natural female tonic. I started bleeding lightly and just assumed it was my period.  This went on for a few days, just spotting lightly so I wasn't alarmed.  Into the 2nd week I took a home pregnancy test and it showed positive.  To confirm I went to the doctor who gave me a blood pg test -- positive.  I was a little stressed because I had taken the Dong Quai tea to bring on my period before I knew I was pregnant.  I read about the effects of Dong Quai and found that it has been used to induce abortion.  I made an appt with an OB for the middle of January, but before I could make it to that appt, I started bleeding heavily and miscarried.  An ultrasound confirmed the miscarriage.  I don't know if this pregnancy was in the uterus or in the tube, and I don't know if the herbs I took contributed to the miscarriage. My second Angel.

Second Ectopic Pregnancy
The second ectopic pregnancy happened to me 6 years after the first in September 1996.  A week after I found out I was pregnant via blood HCG test, I started spotting.  My OB had me come in every 2-3 days to monitor the HCG levels and ensure that they were doubling as they should.  Everything looked fine for a couple weeks, and then on the day that I had my last blood test, I started getting light-headed & almost passed out several times at work.  I was rushed to the hospital and had emergency surgery to remove the tubal pregnancy.  My OB said that my tube looked great and she didn't understand why the pregnancy implanted in the tube. My third Angel.

Third Ectopic Pregnancy
The third ectopic was in Dec 1997.  On October 23rd I had an HSG (hysterosalpingogram), a.k.a. "dye test" to determine if my remaining tube was blocked. The doc said my tube looked clear and to "go for it".  At my 2-week post-op visit I requested a pregnancy test because I felt pregnant -- the urine test showed negative.  I still felt pregnant so a week later I had a blood preg test and it showed positive.. . . .

I was excited but in a very guarded way.   I started spotting about a week later so we monitored my HCG levels every other day to see if they were doubling. Everything looked good except for the light spotting.  The night before Thanksgiving, my husband took me to the ER to have blood drawn again after I had some major cramping.  Everything looked good still and we thought it may have been just gas.

The morning of December 1st we found out that it wasn't just gas.  When I went to the rest room at work, I greyed out and had to wait in the bathroom for someone to come along to guide me back to my office.  A co-worker called my husband while I laid on the floor of his cubicle, cramping and getting cold.  My co-worker also called my doctor who recommended that I start drinking water to fill my bladder for an ultrasound.  I begged my husband to take me home so I could take some Maalox just in case this was just extreme gas. I dozed right after taking the Maalox and my husband had a hard time waking me up. Then when he tried to help me to the car, I kept going limp and he threatened to call an ambulance. I made it  to the ER where I got a wheelchair and was forced to drink 24 oz of water before an u/s could be performed. Finally, the u/s tech saw something and called my doctor to come to the hospital. Meanwhile, while my husband was trying to help me get dressed, I started have seizures/convulsions.  Any time I moved, my body would lock up and I would hear a low moaning sound inside my head. This happened many times before I was finally given something to relax me before surgery. My fourth Angel.

When I woke up later, my doc said that the embryo was implanted very high in my fallopian tube and that she recommended we pursue In Vitro Fertilization (IVF) when we wanted to get pregnant again.  At that point I wasn't ready to TRY getting pregnant for a VERY LONG time!!! As I was recovering, I researched IVF on the Internet and we made an appt with a Reproductive Endocrinologist (RE) in July 1998.

>> My IVF Experience