To say my emotions were running high after the surgery for the tubal pregnancy was an understatement. I felt such a sense of loss. To go from knowing that even if you were going to lose a pregnancy, you still had the chance to try again later, to having that chance taken away, and especially in such an abrupt manner, was devastating. I felt the same sense of loss that I felt after my tubal ligation- I felt hopeless.
Getting Pregnant With One Tube
I didn’t want to hear “You still have one tube” because that didn’t matter to me at that point. I didn’t know if the other tube was open or not. So as far as I was concerned it was over for us.
I was angry – angry at the ER doctor for saying that it was not an ectopic, when it was. I was angry at myself for not testing sooner, or for not charting, as I felt that would have clued me in that I was pregnant and then I could have gotten the early monitoring and hopefully have prevented this. I was mad that we had gone two weeks without knowing that I was pregnant, that was two weeks we could have known and shared those moments together, instead of finding out and losing the baby in under a week.
Tubal Ligation Side Effects: Long Term Guilt
I felt guilty, as if I should have known that I was pregnant and should have been able to do something about it. I felt guilty for being upset, when one of my close friends who I met through tubal reversal surgery who happened to live close to me, was getting bad news herself – an unsuccessful IUI cycle left her and her husband with IVF as their only option. What right do I have to be upset when she was going through so much more?
I remember thinking offhandedly the first 10 months of this journey that “ectopic pregnancies were rare and that happens to other people, not me.” Now I felt like I was the ONLY person to have ever gone through this and no one else could possibly understand.
Chances of Getting Pregnant After Tubal Ligation Reversal
The first three weeks, I cried – a lot. I was miserable with grief, unable to sleep, and uninterested in life as a whole. Then one day I spent all night thinking about it, and I realized that I was really in no different a spot than I had been before I woke up on New Years Eve day, as far as knowing about my fertility. I still didn’t know if I could get pregnant or not, I didn’t know if my tube was open, but THERE WAS STILL THE CHANCE IT WAS. I had to make myself start focusing on the fact that it COULD be instead of convincing myself that it wasn’t. So once again, I was in a waiting game – as soon as I started I could call to schedule the HSG.
I still feel sad over the loss of my baby, and the loss of my tube, as I feel I won’t ever be whole again. Tubal reversal surgery gave me that feeling of being whole again back, but nothing can reverse this. I can’t say enough how important it is to get the early monitoring done, and to pay attention to your body – if something seems out of the ordinary, get it checked out!
HSG After Tubal Reversal Surgery
I started my period again in the middle of February. Fifty-three days after my miscarriage. It was fifty-three days after my tubal reversal that I started for the first time too. It was snowing on the way home from my ligation reversal and it was snowing on the way home from the ectopic surgery also. It was snowing the day I started my period in February. I’m hoping that since my tubal ligation reversal was a success that those are signs that I will successfully end up pregnant before this journey is over. I hope.
My HSG is scheduled for less than a week away, and I am nervous but ready to find out. Thanks for continuing to read my story and for all of the love and support all of my Tubal Reversal Sisters have shown me.
Submitted By Georgia Peach
Pregnancy After Tubal Reversal
This is the continuation of the personal experience of tubal reversal patient Georgia Peach. The article immediately before this one is Pregnancy After Ligation Reversal: Georgia Peach Has a Pregnancy Loss.
Georgia came to A Personal Choice in 2009 for tubal ligation reversal and asked if she could write a blog about her experience. Her entire series describes her reasons for tubal reversal, her tubal reversal surgical experience, and her journey to conceive after tubal ligation reversal. Her first article was The Tubal Reversal Journey of Georgia Peach.
