“Wait, I’m Pregnant?” How I found out I was pregnant after being told that I could never have kids

One cycle – that is all it took.

Since we were told we could never get pregnant (read about my infertility journey here), we stopped using birth control and carried on with our lives. We were engaged to be married. We quickly found a wedding venue and a wedding dress and made travel plans to distract me from my woes.

We traveled to China with some friends to celebrate the New Year and were not completely surprised when my period – yet again – did not come.

I decided to get a pregnancy test just in case and awkwardly asked my Chinese-speaking friend to buy one for me. Our whole group went inside the pharmacy together, asking why we were there. “Oh, um…well…” so I told them the whole story. Now everyone was on this journey with us!

I peed on the stick while everyone waited. No pressure. My partner and I tried to guess the results. They were in Chinese! What does a faint blue line mean? We assumed it was negative and went on to drink a ton of champagne with our friends on our last night in China.

More medical tests, new news

My doctor had recommended I get some more blood tests when I returned from my trip to figure out what was going on with my hormones. I was used to giving vials of blood, so why not?

The morning before our engagement photos, I got an early phone call from our fertility doctor.

Pregnant? NO WAY!

In shock, I put her on speakerphone so my partner could hear the news.

We were in disbelief the whole drive to the ultrasound appointment. We were in disbelief when the little grey image appeared with a tiny jellybean of life flickering on the monitor. We were in disbelief when the sound of the heartbeat filled the room and filled our hearts with hope.

The engagement photos from that day capture our joy over just finding out that miracles do happen, and our excitement for our engagement.

So, imagine my shock when I felt a gush of blood run down my legs.

I hadn’t yet told many people I was pregnant. I was only 11 weeks along. I was sitting at my desk at work when I felt something coming out of me. I panicked and ran to the bathroom, quietly whispering no, no, no, no as I hoped with all of my being this was not what I thought it was–a miscarriage. I kept saying no, no, no as I pulled down my pants and frantically sat on the toilet, no, no, no as I felt more blood coming, no, no, no as the tears rolled down my face and I reluctantly peered at the palm-sized mass in the toilet.

This couldn’t be happening, I thought. It had been an emotional roller coaster, from thinking I could never have a kid to finding out I was pregnant. All my hopes and dreams put on this tiny little jellybean in my uterus.

No. This could not happen.

But it did. I didn’t know what to do.

What was the protocol for a miscarriage?

Was I supposed to go to the doctor? Then I remembered that I was at work, covered in blood, and in a public bathroom. I took a deep breath. I cleaned myself up. I grabbed a paper cup and scooped my hopes and dreams out of the toilet. I walked quickly to grab my purse and keys and fled the scene in a flash, trying not to make eye contact with anyone along the way. I drove home in tears, texting my partner and my mom and calling my doctor, who scheduled an ultrasound appointment right away.

I was heartbroken. Could this have all been for nothing? My parents came to sit with me while we waited for my ultrasound appointment, telling me things to cheer me up like, “Be glad you could at least get pregnant.” And “Everything happens for a reason.”

The urge to help someone feel better is so strong, they couldn’t see that all I needed was to feel my feelings and have someone strong enough to sit in that pain with me.

Then a text message came.

“Hi, Angel. This is Beth. This might not be the case, but with my first pregnancy, I passed a large mass while driving home one day that got caught in my pantyhose. It ended up not being the baby.”

I read the text to my mom, 100% certain my coworker’s story was just going to get my hopes up and could not be what was happening to me.

A doctor came into the room in a hurry. I was the last patient of the day, and she seemed to have very little patience for me. She turned on the ultrasound and said, “There is your baby. Everything is fine. It was just a subchorionic hematoma, super common.” WTF?

If it was super common, how come no one told me about this?

A heartbeat flickering on the screen.

My mom held my hand as we smiled in disbelief at the little fetus still hanging on tight inside me, heartbeat flickering on the screen.

And just like that, my little jellybean proved to the world that she wasn’t going anywhere, both at 12 weeks of pregnancy, and many months later when passed my due date.

Babies really make you work for it, don’t they?

Read on to find the next installment of the Road to Mamahood Series – my home birth story.

The “Road to Mamahood” series will continue over the course of a few posts to share my journey from infertility to pregnancy and then through two homebirths. Please continue the story here:

Why I had a home birth. (Road to Mamahood Series, Part 3)

How I survived 28 hours of Labor at home – A hero’s journey. (Road to Mamahood Series, Part 4)

Angel

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Puerto Rican & Indigenous mama of two. Bay Area native. Salsa dancer. Backpacker. Doula. Angel (she/her/hers) is a co-founding member of the Beautiful Brown Adventures team. She has traveled to over 30 countries and loves to explore the world with her two daughters & partner - one ice cream shop at a time.