I finally fell pregnant after 22 miscarriages but was forced to terminate the baby twice – I was broken beyond repair
A WOMAN has told how after 22 miscarriages she finally fell pregnant naturally, but was forced to terminate her "miracle" baby not once, but twice.
Jamie Reichenbach, from Florida, USA, shared her story in a personal essay which was originally published by .
The hopeful mum, who has a 12-year-old son, said she and her husband would plan their entire schedule around being pregnant, but each time it ended the same painful way.
Admitting it felt like she was"pregnant every other month", Jamie explained how "we started planning our lives based on potential miscarriages".
In March 2018, the pregnant Jamie said she felt the "the oh-too-familiar cramps" and was gearing up for another failed pregnancy.
She headed into "urgent care" to ";confirm her suspicions" - that she would, yet again, miscarry - but to her surprise "the baby was fine".
That was of course until she was told that the baby was growing in her fallopian tube, so she was rushed to hospital where hr nightmare began.
"I was so humiliated and so alone, but I oddly felt comfort in knowing the longer I stayed in the hallway, the longer I got to keep my baby," she wrote.
After an hour of waiting, Jamie remembers two student doctors approaching her bedside and they told her she had an ectopic pregnancy.
She was told she had to terminate the pregnancy and that she had two options - surgery or an injection of methotrexate.
I was so humiliated and so alone, but I oddly felt comfort in knowing the longer I stayed in the hallway, the longer I got to keep my baby.
Jamie Reichenbach
"I burst into tears and they just stared at me. I knew I was making them uncomfortable and it just upset me more. They wanted me to make a decision right then!" she recalls.
"I wanted to scream at them to leave, but that would have required me to come out from underneath the blanket and to speak. They finally left after what was probably only a couple of minutes, but felt more like an hour."
Understandably shaken and broken, Jamie explained she "could die if I refused to terminate the pregnancy" - this would mean "leaving my son without his mother," and that just "wasn't an option".
She wanted the surgery - despite it risking her life - but taking her doctor's advice, decided the shot of methotrexate was the best option.
This is a chemotherapy agent and immune-system suppressant and it's used to treat cancer, autoimmune diseases, ectopic pregnancy, and for medical abortions.
What is an Ectopic pregnancy?
An ectopic pregnancy is when a fertilised egg implants itself outside of the womb, usually in one of the fallopian tubes.
The fallopian tubes are the tubes connecting the ovaries to the womb. If an egg gets stuck in them, it won't develop into a baby and your health may be at risk if the pregnancy continues.
Unfortunately, it's not possible to save the pregnancy. It usually has to be removed using medicine or an operation.
In the UK, around 1 in every 90 pregnancies is ectopic. This is around 11,000 pregnancies a year.
Source:
After being sent home to "wait it out" Jamie was "more broken than ever", but despite everything, she remained optimistic.
She continued: "I had lost so many babies before, and as messed up as it is to say, this was my normal…lose a baby and get back to life."
In the days that followed, Jamie spent her time in and out of doctors visits.
She would get her blood checked every 48 hours to make sure her HCG levels were dropping to confirm her pregnancy had successfully ended - and it had.
Forced to carry on with her life, Jamie says "every day was hard" but she "slowly started to get back to normal and find things to keep my mind busy".
I had lost so many babies before, and as messed up as it is to say, this was my normal…lose a baby and get back to life.
Jamie Reichenbach
This meant installing a new kitchen, or getting distracted by her 12-year-old's homework- but it was at this moment Jamie realised "the real trauma was yet to come".
Exactly two weeks to the day, Jamie remembers waking up with "the worst pain I had ever felt."
She rolled out of bed and "crawled to the bathroom", she remembers thinking "I was going to die."
She began to sweat and the colour drained from her body. She woke her husband and they began to panic.
"The look on his face when he looked at me confirmed it – I was definitely dying. He was in a panic!" she said.
They arrived at the hospital where she was told "it’s probably an ovarian cyst", but having had them before, Jaime knew this was different.
Jamie explained it was an ultrasound that revealed "the baby I lost was still alive", the methotrexate did not work and the baby had grown in size, causing her "tubes to rapture".
She recalls: "So here we were again, having to terminate the same pregnancy for a second time to save my life, except this time it wasn’t preemptive. This time, my life was in serious danger and emergency surgery was the only option."
Here we were again, having to terminate the same pregnancy for a second time to save my life, except this time it wasn’t preemptive. This time, my life was in serious danger and emergency surgery was the only option.
Jamie Reichenbach
Following the surgery, Jamie said she had to "start the grieving process all over and more than ever", admitting "every one of the 22 babies we lost before this was significant and heartbreaking, but the trauma with baby 23 broke me beyond repair."
Jamie explained that the weight of the trauma was too much for her to carry and she "ended up in the darkest place I have ever been" for over a year.
She struggled getting out of bed and "holding a simple conversation" was difficult, but she knew she had to move on for the sake of her son.
"I knew I wasn’t giving my son the best of me, the mother he deserved, but knowing this only made me feel worse. I knew my husband felt like he had lost his wife and that only made me resent him."
It took an entire year for Jamie to accept what had happened and she was finally able to "feel again."
But she insists the healing couldn't begin until she realised that "I wasn’t just grieving baby 23, but the fact that I’d never allowed myself to grieve the 22 before."
"Baby 23 didn’t break me. Not giving myself the time and space to grieve each and every loss, forcing myself to be strong, letting the pressure of society force me back to ‘normal’ when I wasn’t ready to be, and my need to be okay – these are what broke me," she admitted.
Jamie revealed that she still has days where she's "hit with waves of sadness and anger" but she's learned to accept them.
She said: "We don’t have to force ourselves to be okay to make others comfortable. We don’t have to protect people from our feelings. We deserve to allow ourselves to experience our loss for what it is. An unimaginable tragic loss, worthy of our heartache, worthy of our tears, and worthy of our healing."
Jamie now shares her journey on and .
Most read in Fabulous
Meanwhile, a woman was told she couldn't have a baby at 25 and that becoming a mum is ‘medically impossible’.
READ MORE SUN STORIES
In other real life news, a woman revealed how she woke up from her Covid coma with a month-old baby.
Plus a 'broke new mum' came up with a genius baby mat idea on maternity leave – now her company is worth £3m.