out of place
I wake from anaesthesia crying and begging for my mother.
---
I have had three weeks of excitement, terror, trepidation, joy, swinging wildly from one to the other. Three weeks of my breasts tender and aching, three weeks of tentative if-this-works-out planning for the weeks and months and years ahead.
Three weeks of occasional faint smears of blood my GP isn't overly concerned about, three weeks of low-down gentle cramping my copy of What To Expect When You're Expecting says is normal.
(It isn't.)
---
I am booked in for a standard dating scan. The ultrasound tech can't find the gestational sac—not uncommon, she says, when it's still so early. Probably if we do a repeat scan in a fortnight we'll see something then. There is a but..., though, unspoken but there.
But. I feel hope dissipating. My wife squeezes my hand tighter.
The tech asks again if I'm sure about my dates, if it was a home test or a blood test. Blood test, I tell her, multiple of them in fact, and I'm absolutely certain about my dates.
Well, she says, I'll just get pics of everything while we're here.
The uterus in its squashed-doughnut shape is the only thing I can easily recognise on the scan. She has more trouble with my ovaries, and calls in another tech to try to get clearer images. Stronger hands on the transvaginal wand, jabbing deep into my pelvis. After months of fertility testing and treatments, I'm used to the sensation, but it's still unpleasant.
Left ovary normal. The right one... has a shadow. Just a shadow, blob-like along one edge.
The second tech takes measurements. We just need to have a quick word with the radiologist, she says, in a voice too easy, too casual. You can put your clothes back on if you like.
The flicker of fear turns solid.
---
Probable ectopic pregnancy, the radiologist tells me apologetically. You need to go to emergency.
Now? I ask.
Not immediately, he clarifies, you have time to go home and pack a bag. But today. Tells me the most suitable hospital, the place with an Emergency Department that specialises in OB/GYN. The hospital I'd been planning to get my prenatal care at, the hospital I'd been going to give birth in.
If it were my wife... he starts, and trails off, twisting his wedding band.
My wife and I sit around waiting for the official radiology report. I (re)read the Wikipedia page on ectopic pregnancies. Joke that I'm being diagnosed at exactly the mean diagnosis time, 7.2 weeks. Perfectly average, how hilarious.
I look up the etymology. From the Greek ektopos. Out of place.
The radiology report comes back. Adnexal mass. 30 x 37 x 28 mm. Three full centimetres. A small amount of free fluid. I think that probably means I'm bleeding internally. Just a little.
The receptionist refunds the cost of the scan.
Back home, the cats get a very early dinner.
---
At the hospital, I wait only a few minutes in triage, getting sent through ahead of the woman who travelled 200km for a possible problem with her foetus' heart, ahead of the woman who keeps wincing and rubbing her back.
I had known ectopic pregnancies were serious. It didn't sink in until then just how serious.
I am measured, weighed, get my blood pressure and oxygen levels checked. Sat down and asked questions I barely remember being asked. When was my last menstrual cycle? What symptoms have I had? When did I last eat? Do I understand what an ectopic pregnancy is?
I start weeping at some point and can't seem to stop. My wife's arms encircle me. The triage midwife pats my shoulder. I'm sorry, I say, I'm sorry, I just really wanted this baby.
She says kind, soothing things. Of course, this must be such a shock for you, I'm so sorry, I know how hard this must be.
I don't want to be told soothing things. I just want this to not be happening.
---
I get handed over to a different midwife, and the student shadowing her. I compliment the student's custom name badge. We all talk about the recent state election, and how to best deal with the family members who willingly vote for fascists. I make jokes and laugh. Anything to pretend this is normal.
The midwife apparently knows my mum from walking their dogs together. This is... not where my mum is usually known from, in a hospital setting, but I'll take it.
(My mum is a doctor, and a decently well-known one at that. Just to clarify.)
It takes three people five separate attempts to get an IV in. My veins, it seems, are good for getting blood out of, but cannulas don't want to stay. I feel pincushioned. I make more jokes.
There is a twinging pain in my lower abdomen, off to the right. Maybe it's psychosomatic. I don't know.
A gynaecologist. He seems terribly young, though he must be at least my age. He kindly explains that I need a salpingectomy, the complete removal of my right fallopian tube. I ask about methotrexate; he says the pregnancy is too large, too far advanced. He is surprised by the question, though. Asks me if I'm a doctor myself. Or a nurse perhaps? I don't tell him, I'm super autistic and one of my special interest areas is pregnancy complications for some reason, I just mumble something about being from a medical family. Which is also true.
Everyone seems about ready to take me up to surgery, before someone realises my blood test results haven't come back. The room empties. The student midwife comes in and out, checking my blood pressure is stable, that I'm not in any pain. She mentions an unexpected caesarean, that the anaesthetist is tied up.
We wait.
My wife calls my mum. Tells her first which hospital we're at, and I hear an excited ooh! from the phone before I mouth tell her it's bad news.
---
Everyone seems mildly apologetic when they come back in. But the theatre's ready for me.
I kiss my wife. This fucking sucks, but I'll be okay, I tell her. I love you.
The midwife tells me again how sorry she is. How it just isn't fair.
I say, It isn't, and isn't that better? It would feel so much worse if all this was happening because I deserve it. She seems struck by this. I take great comfort in the general unfairness of the universe, I add.
Outside the door to the surgical theatre, I say, Obviously I know you can't tell me names or details. But I heard there was an emergency caesarean and I just want to know, was everyone okay? The midwife glances at the anaesthetic nurse. Yes, the nurse says, they're both fine.
I'm so happy for them, I say, and hear my voice cracking. I am happy for them, for this stranger and their baby, and I'm so jealous I could vomit. I am bile and bitter gall, and I hate myself for it.
The surgeon—not the gynaecologist I saw before—compliments my glasses frames. I smile and thank her. Cheerful. Normal.
I want to ask her, is there any possibility this is a mistake? That you'll get in there and everything will be fine? But I don't ask. I know the answer already.
You've had general anaesthesia before, right? You know the drill, the anaesthetist says.
Glasses off. Monitors. Masks. I hold the oxygen mask down over my own face. Mouth the Shema to myself. It doesn't help.
Fuzzy head-ringing feeling. Eyes close. Night-night.
---
I wake weeping.
I always do, after general anaesthetic. It's normal for me. This time at least I know why.
I want my mum, I wail, I want my mum. No matter that I'm well into my thirties. Right now, I am a child again, as young as any of the children in recovery alongside me, beyond the paper screens. Younger, maybe. I am nothing but wanting and pain.
There is a nurse next to me, or a midwife, I'm not sure. She strokes my hand. I know, she says, I know.
It hurts.
I know it hurts, sweetheart, but you're alright, surgery went well, you lost a little bit of blood but you're going to be just fine.
I know, I sob, but I want my mum, and I want my wife, and I want my baby.
---
I wanted you so badly, little one.
Just not enough to let you kill me over it.
