Yesterday, I found out that I'm pregnant.

4th August 2023

Yesterday, I found out that I’m pregnant.

It wasn’t in the way I’d imagined. At home with my husband, nervously waiting the full 3 minutes to flip the little white bar of plastic over to reveal 2 lines, a few tears, hugging each other; disbelief mixed with utter joy.

No, it wasn’t like that at all.

It was in a hospital emergency room, alone.

I’m not one to present myself to the emergency room. I can be dramatic, but not to that extent. I don’t use public resources lightly, I don’t often talk myself into a state of panic to the point of needing immediate reassurance. And yet.

I had woken up the previous day to blood running down my legs. It’s a cliche of period culture, but it’s not an experience I’d ever actually had before. As a woman with PCOS, there are loads of period cliches I’ve never experienced (imagine having 28 day cycles! It really seems too often). I waddle-ran myself to the bathroom scoffing to myself, muttering “alright, calm down, what the fuck”. When I got to the toilet, it was everywhere, and (strap in for gross details) full of clots. I get clots in my periods but this was a lot. They just kept coming with every wipe. I examined a few, looking for clues. Whatcha doing there, lil buddy? I wasn’t worried though. My body is a never ending mystery to me. PCOS does strange things, including totally desensitising you to any and all gynaecological phenomena. This is just a weird period. My cycle was on day 45 at that point, so who am I to say what a “normal” period should be after that long. I popped my period cup in and left the bathroom. I told Lewis that my period had definitely come, so this cycle hadn’t been a success in our efforts to conceive. We had a cuddle, and he started to comfort me. “Oh, it’s fine,” I said, “I really wasn’t expecting anything. We’ll try again next cycle”. We went on with our days.

I ignored my cup all day, as I usually do. That’s the absolute dream of period cups; you don’t have to think about them for hours and hours at a time. When I finally got home that night and took it out, I found… nothing. There was nothing in the cup. After an entire day of should-have-been bleeding. That worried me, but mostly it pissed me off. I am so sick of having a mystery of a body, that is always throwing unpredictable, incomprehensible shit at me. Last year, my cycle was 34(ish) days, over and over. This year, for no fucking reason, it’s blown out to 45+. It doesn’t seem to matter what I do, I can’t work this piece of shit, PCOS riddled body out. I fumed to myself, washed the cup, put it away and replaced it with a pad.

Clearly, I needed to be able to keep an eye on things a little clearer.

Overnight, nothing.

The next day, a new pad, nothing.

I sat at my desk at work, doing the most unrelaxing body scan imaginable. You know how they say that to meditate, you should scan your body and notice all the different sensations? That mindfulness is relaxing, calming and centring? Not when you’re looking for clues as to why your body has decided it’s non-functional again.

I thought over my day.

• That morning, walking up the ramp to the train station, I’d felt a wave of clammy wooziness. It passed, but I’d noted it.

• My abdomen was aching, a very similar feeling to the day of or before a period. Just a mild ache, not painful, but noticeable. Occasionally, I felt a particular stab on the left hand side.

• When I’d taken my first call that morning, my brain was full of fuzz and I’d stared at nothing for a full 5 seconds before being able to choose my next move.

• I felt tired. But I’m literally always tired. It’s a personality trait more than it is a problem.

• My left shoulder also hurt. It’s not uncommon. I’m forever attending massages, osteos, physios and acupuncture trying to ease shoulder pain.

In my lunch break, I made the fatal mistake.

I started Googling.

Signs of ectopic pregnancy

12th day high temperature bbt

Implantation bleeding

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Blood clots 12dpo

Visited: Implantation Bleeding & Clotting - Netmums

Visited: 12dpo could this be implantation bleeding? Netmums

Visited: Heavy implantation bleeding - Getting pregnant…

Visited: 11 Heavy Implantation Bleeding Stories (You’re Not Alone)

Visited: Heavy implantation bleeding: is it normal?

Signs of internal bleeding

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And finally, royal womens hospital

I was convinced I’d worked it out. It couldn’t be implantation bleeding: it shouldn’t have clots, or come with pain. Heavy bleeding, pain in one side, wooziness, even the goddamn shoulder pain: ectopic pregnancy.

My lunch break ended. I sat back at my desk, trying to get it all off my mind. I took a call, and was barely present enough to understand the questions, let alone the solutions. This wasn’t tenable, I thought, I need to go. I felt stupid, but I went to my friendliest manager, knelt beside his desk and shakily said “um, I’m having a bit of an, um, health emergency…. Can I go?”

To which he cheerfully replied “of course, go!” and giggled.

I packed and left. I couldn’t think straight enough to decide what to do. Go home, take a pregnancy test, then come back into the Royal Womens? Or go straight there? How would I tell Lewis? Should I tell him? I don’t want to worry him. He’d be very upset if I didn’t though. Should I call him before I get home? Should we go to the hospital together? All the while, I ghost-walked onto a tram, heading towards Melbourne Central to catch a train home. Where even is the Royal Womens, anyway? I thought. I Googled. Right fucking next to work. There’s no point going home and coming all the way back in when it’s so goddamn close. Decision made. I got off the tram and called Lewis.

“Hey!” he was so upbeat and happy to hear from me, “how you doing?”

“Uuuuuuuuuuuuum, not great” I shakily told him I thought I was having an ectopic pregnancy and why, while hiding behind a column of a building. The city was so fucking loud. Lewis tried to comfort me (and himself), telling me I was doing the right thing, and doing all I could, that he’d sort the dog out then come in to meet me. All I could hear were trams dinging, their metal on metal screech as they turned and slowed, construction, cars, people, the ambient, deafening buzz of the city. We agreed I’d go straight to the hospital. We knew that if I came home, took a test and it came back positive, I would only worry more.

By catching the tram away from work, I’d actually put more distance between myself and the hospital. It was an awkward spot to catch PT to now, so I decided to walk. It was unseasonably warm, I had to take off my coat and shove it in my tote bag which bounced on my side as I walked, really pissing me off. I have sensory problems at the best of times, and this was not the best of times. All I wanted was a fucking backpack, but I’d been having a nightmare of a time finding one lately, and dealing with the brand of the bag that I did own, but was so inept at being a backpack I wasn’t using it anymore. My tote bounced and bounced while I swung haphazardly between terrified, angry and feeling like a total fool. I was going to waste public resources; I was being silly to think there was anything wrong with me. I’d get there, they’d make me pee in a cup, tell me I’m not pregnant and therefore not ectopic; it’s probably just a weird PCOS period, women’s bodies are strange and understudied, deal with it, have some panadol, come back if I’m dying.

I finally arrived at the hospital. Approaching the check in counter, I suddenly realised I had no idea what to say.

“Presenting, um… myself?” I don’t know why I landed on using TV medical drama scripts.

I explained myself, in depth, in a very out-in-the-open space, through a window to a receptionist, then a nurse. All the blood clots, all the stabbing pains, all the tiny minute details of wooziness and clamminess and fuzziness and uncertainty. They gave me a little red armband with my name and DOB on it, then I sat and waited.

The waiting room was a calm place, not as busy as I might have imagined it’d be. There was a couple behind me, quietly leaning on each other. Another couple and a tiny, unmoving sleeping swaddled baby arrived. They were clearly very new to this, and nervous. The mother struggled to get up and down from her chair as she shifted uncomfortably. Must have had a c-section, I suspected, from the way she lifted herself so delicately, trying not to strain her core. The TV hanging from the ceiling was tiny, silent and flickered. The English version of The Chase was on, and I was thankful it was muted. A family of about four people were in the corner, loudly speaking a language I couldn’t place. The matriarch’s phone kept ringing at a deafening volume. When their name was finally called, the patient was in the bathroom - literally an anxiety I’d already developed for myself as I avoided going to the bathroom, and I was worried for them. What if they lost their place in the queue? But they weren’t worried. They told the doctor to wait, and made them wait. Brave.

After about 40 minutes, a small bespeckled female doctor appeared and called my name. “I’m Dr Lauren, how are you?” she asked.

“EhehehhHHHehhh” I replied, rocking my hand back and forth to suggest unbalance.

She took me to a small windowless room with very 90’s couches on each side of the wall; the actual hospital beds were just being cleaned and changed over. We went over my situation again. Blood clots, bleeding, pain in my abdomen, wooziness. She was going to take some bloods to check on me. After the most painless needle I’ve ever experienced, while she was crouched on the floor fiddling with vials and my blood, using one hand to extract and the other to hold the needle in place, to make conversation I asked “so, what’re you testing for?”

“Well, this one is an immediate pregnancy test, so we’ll be able to tell straight away if you’re pregnant” “Oh, you don’t fuck around with urine” (why am I swearing in conversation with a doctor?)

“Hah, no. And the others are just in case it comes back positive we can test for other things”.

How totally unnecessary, I thought.

Once Dr Lauren had taken my bloods away to be processed, a nurse came and took me to a hospital bed. I don’t know why, but I wasn’t expecting this. She was wearing the most delightfully colourful patterned scrubs, and her name was Caz. She took my blood pressure, “is your blood pressure usually high?” “I think I’m just stressed” “Fair enough!”

She fetched ice water (that never melted, in the whole upcoming 4 hours!), and left me to wait.

Dr Lauren eventually returned and took a detailed medical history. I couldn’t believe how at ease I was: everyone believed me. No one dismissed my pain, my experiences, or my concerns. I was offered panadol, but only as pain relief for the cramping, not as a solution to make me feel like something was being done so they could force me out. Everyone agreed that the bleeding was concerning, that it was worth looking into, that I was not overreacting. I had a glimpse into a female-run healthcare system, and it was glorious.

I had led myself to believe for whatever reason that at the end of the medical history, Dr Lauren would reveal the outcome of the blood test. That it would be a matter of “that’s all very interesting, but the bloods suggest nothing is wrong”. But she didn’t. She said we needed to keep waiting for them, and left again.

Eventually, after some unplaceable amount of time, Dr Lauren returned. She reached around the purple paper curtain and slid into my dimly lit alcove hospital room.

Surprisingly, she sat on the bed beside me.

“Okay so, that pregnancy test we did, that’s come back positive”.

“OH!” I blinked at the wall. I frowned under my mask a little. “Yeah, not what you expected, huh?” “No, no I definitely expected you to say that I was overexaggerating”.

While Dr Lauren continued to tell me about my blood results, I continued to blink blankly. My HCG was only 150, so it was very very early, and bleeding in early pregnancy is a means for concern, but the fact that it had stopped was a good thing, but also it was probably too early to see if it was ectopic anyway, we’d have to wait and see, which can be very strange, were we planning this, was I okay?

Still thinking I was ectopic, I replied “this is either really great news, or terrible”.

I was told that we were still waiting on the outcome of the Beta blood test (the more official one that goes to a lab) that can tell us more, and after checking I was okay, she left again.

I was left alone in a hospital room with the brand new and unexpected knowledge that I was pregnant. That I was not a hypochondriac, but I’d picked up on some subtle bodily changes and, in my eternally cynical state, misinterpreted them to mean disaster.

A member of the reception staff snuck around my curtain and told me Lewis was here, would I like to let him in? “Yes, please, definitely”

Then there was a strange delay. It felt like a lifetime. I hung my legs over the side of the bed and tried to figure out which order to fill him in.

When he finally arrived, he was masked up and carrying his laptop bag. He was clearly settling in for a long night; he thought he might be able to get some work done while I had emergency surgery for an ectopic pregnancy. That’s my husband. At least one of us cares about work.

We hugged, while he asked in soft tones how I was.

“Yeah, I’m okay”, I began, “so… Weird news. The blood test that they did for pregnancy came back… positive…?”

“Okay” he said, clearly unsure how to react under these peculiar circumstances. This is the news we’d been wanting, and actively working towards (ew, gross, tmi). But it was difficult to feel anything but apprehension under these conditions.

I tried to settle our expectations, talked more about how we didn’t know where it was yet, or that it would stick around. Even if it’s not ectopic, there’s the risk of miscarriage.

An older nurse opened the purple curtain and introduced herself “Hi, Lucy, I’m here to take you to your scan” “Oh, I’m not Lucy”, I politely replied

Another younger nurse suddenly appeared behind her, slightly out of breath, “It’s not Lucy! I got the name wrong! It’s Tegan!” “Oh, okay well hi Tegan, I’m here to take you to your scan”

This did not clarify much. What scan?

“I didn’t know I was getting a scan? I don’t think this is for me?” I eyed the wheelchair she’d brought with her - definitely not for me.

Suddenly Dr Lauren appeared, “hi! Sorry! I didn’t think we’d be able to get you a scan because it’s the end of the night but they’ve agreed to squeeze you in, so it’s just upstairs, sorry, I wasn’t sure they’d be able to do it so didn’t mention it”.

“Oh, alright then, that’s fine”, I felt very looked after and cared for. Not only did they agree to see me, take my bloods and listen to my symptoms, they were willing to get me a scan. Women lead medical care, I tell you, it’s miraculous.

The older nurse insisted I sit in the wheelchair; it was procedure and she’d get in trouble if I didn’t. I’d never been pushed in a wheelchair before so my curiosity took over and I was more than happy to jump in. This tiny, mighty nurse pushed me to the staff lifts, and took me up to the scans and x-rays area. It was deserted, clearly in its “closing for the night” stages of untidiness. There was no one around. The nurse carefully positioned my wheelchair in the waiting area alongside the less mobile chairs and said she’d go find someone. From around the corner came the “been there, done that, seen it all” voice of a later career doctor. Once greeted, she let me walk to the room, unbound by the wheelchair. After going to the bathroom, I was invited into the dimly lit ultrasound room.

“Now at this stage, it’s highly unlikely we’ll be able to see anything” “Yeah, yep” The small nurse organised my gown, found a place for me to undress that wasn't the middle of the strangely large bare room, and sat in the corner, a quiet observer of my black and white organs.

The bed made a horrible screeching sound as it lifted my back, and let my legs fall. I’ve had loads of internal ultrasounds to check up on my PCOS over the years, so this wasn’t new. Cold gel, stiff wand, right up ya, poke it around and see what they can find. “Finding a pregnancy at this stage is like finding a needle in a haystack”, the doctor said. It was barely the size of a poppyseed yet, it was probably still dividing cells, not even a thing yet, but a self-building concept.

The doctor calculated how far along I was based on my last period. Foolishly, I made a comment that I knew that system was inaccurate for me because I’d been tracking my LH and temperature and knew I hadn’t ovulated until a couple of weeks ago.

The doctor scoffed.

“I don’t recommend those things to my patients”, she said, “too much work, too much stress”.

“Hah, yeah, I can relate to that” I cheerfully responded. How the fuck else was I meant to know, lady?! I thought, I can’t just have sex every 2 days for 45 days and hope for the best.

This is the reality of womanhood. Shamed if you do, lost and blind if you don’t.

In the end, as she expected, the doctor couldn’t find anything. It was far too early, the cells were barely dividing yet, let alone making a mark. “I see no reason to believe '', the doctor confidently stated, “why this won't be a normal uterine pregnancy”.

What a bizarre thing to promise people, I thought, something you have literally no insight or control over.

I was wheeled back to Lewis by the tiny nurse, and that’s when the real waiting began. We couldn’t fathom what else needed to happen, but we were also far too shy to ask to leave after everything they’d done for us and how kindly they’d treated me. So, we just waited. In our dimly lit, visually-not-not-audibly-private room behind the purple paper curtain, we waited together. We managed to have fairly normal conversations, around the occasional outburst of “what the fuck!”. We shuffled around the room, uncomfortable slouching on the bed, but uncomfortable being separated when Lewis moved to the chair. I tried laying down. Lewis diligently wore his mask, while I took mine on and off based on who was in the room. I cancelled my 6:30pm acupuncture appointment, finally admitting to myself that there was no way I was going to make it. I’d been there since about 2pm. I was ready to be home.

Finally, around 7pm, a nurse appeared. They explained that Dr Lauren had long gone home and they were just waiting on the new doctor on duty to discharge me.

That took even longer.

Eventually, a small, older doctor appeared. She ran through the same information we’d already been told, and mercifully directed us out of the rabbit warren ward.

When we got outside the building, it was dark and the air felt fresh. It had been an unseasonably warm day, so the dusk felt chilly but soothing. We found our car, headed home, and honestly, I can’t really remember what happened after that until we were in bed trying to sleep. We’d discussed not getting too excited, not getting ahead of ourselves, all of the things that could go wrong from here, how completely not guaranteed it was. When we got into our usual cuddling position, Lewis put his hand on my lower abdomen. It felt uncomfortable, foreign - I have never been a fan of letting people touch my stomach - but also very sweet. We lay in silence like that for a while. Even if this baby doesn't make it, we thought, we want it to feel welcome while it’s here.

You’re welcome here. We want you here. Please stay.