Laying in a hospital bed on October 17, 2018, about to undergo ANOTHER major surgery, the decision to grow our family via surrogacy was made.
A snow-fie - Jan 2019
That October day was one of the most difficult of my life - for more reasons than what met the eye. I was about to undergo another surgery to remove another inexplicably rare cornial ectopic pregnancy.
We started trying to conceive in June of 2018 after the 18 month wait period prescribed by the doctors after the initial near fatal cornial ectopic pregnancy. By September we were pregnant! For Justin’s birthday, I wrapped the positive pregnancy test. We were ecstatic.
Once I had processed what I was told, I phoned Justin to deliver the devastating news. Unfortunately neither of us were naive as to what the procedure to remove the pregnancy entailed. I then called my Dad, whose calm reassuring voice made me feel like I had the strength to proceed through this.
"The fact that this was it - I would never be able to carry another baby, was setting in."
"How is this even possible?"
Still in a state of shock, when I called Justin to let him know the prognosis, "How is this even possible" were the first words out of his mouth. Justin was on a planned business trip for the entire month of October and only in the most dire situation could he return home. Luckily, this time, the corneal ectopic pregnancy was caught before it ruptured.
To say we both experienced devastation was an understatement. Not only had we lost another pregnancy but I was about to undergo major abdominal surgery to repair the incorrectly implanted pregnancy, and I was doing without Justin. And on his own, alone, he had to process it all.
Only weeks earlier in perfect time for his birthday we received news we were indeed pregnant a year and a half after I nearly lost my life to a ruptured ectopic pregnancy which I nearly bled out from. The fact that I was even alive was a miracle and the fact that I had experienced another cornial ectopic pregnancy was unexplainable.
When we decided to try again to get pregnant it wasn't without enormous caution. A year earlier I had undergone more tests than I could count. After consulting on the best Maternal Fetal Medicine doctors, as well as my rock star of an OBGYN, it was determined that although I was missing a Fallopian tube and a crest portion of my uterus, I would be able to carry a pregnancy; just not until the point that going into labor was possible so I would be scheduled for a c-section around 32 weeks. It was also explained that the reoccurrence for a tubal ectopic pregnancy increased given my history however another cornial ectopic pregnancy was so rare there would be a 1 in 1,000,000 chance it would happen again.
Not only did it happen again, but on the same side of my uterus as before. Unexplainable. I had gotten pregnant and carried my son with no issues...what changed?
The fact that I was able to carry and have my son is a miracle. The enormity of the fact that I could have not been here to see my son grow up also weighs on me daily. Sometime I feel selfish that we even attempted to get pregnant again; but what were the chances it would happen again? No one can be that unlucky but we managed to be.
Now, that we have all healed our minds and hearts, and with a fresh set of eyes, we are looking forward to continuing to grow our family and searching for the perfect surrogate to share our journey with.