I was pregnant

Written by Thembie Terry

Standing in the queue at a fast food outlet, I felt the worst pain ever in my abdomen. The room started spinning, sweat ran from all my pores and with that, it all went dark. I came to, with the fast food staff gathered around me. I sobered up from the experience and went straight home. I started to bleed. I bled out for three weeks. Blood running from me like a tap. I had heard stories of abnormal periods so I just kept praying it would stop. I was 19, the last thing I wanted was to arouse my mother’s suspicions. I was sure it would pass til one day a clot as large as my fist came out of me. I decided to go visit a friend about it and halfway to her house, I passed out.

The next day, I went to the doctor…with my mother. I lay on the examination table as the doctor poked at my stomach. She decided to let me go for a scan because everything was sore and she could not determine the source of the pain. I was pregnant but my pregnancy was killing me. It was an ectopic pregnancy. The foetus was growing in the fallopian tube.

“She can’t go home. She needs to be operated on today as a matter of urgency. Don’t even allow her to walk because if the fallopian tube raptures, we won’t be able to save her,” said the doctor.

I went to the government hospital. Several doctors conducted tests and came up with various diagnostics. They stripped me for surgery at 19:00hours and took me to the theatre. A Chinese man bound me to the operating table and they left me there naked as they waited for the doctor who was supposed to operate on me. He must have arrived at 21:00hours. I was shivering. The operating doctor and the Chinese anesthetics guy have a debate over operating me. The Chinese guy tells them that I’m freezing and that if they put me under during hypothermia I might not wake up. The doctor laid his case that if he doesn’t operate they won’t be able to save me from the rapture. The operation goes ahead.

I count back from 5… 5, 4……

I woke up in excruciating pain. Realized all the moves the body makes are from the abdominal area. My fallopian tube was too strained and they tied it. Not only was I in physical pain but I was also hurting emotionally. I had lost a child. My parents were disappointed in me and worst of all, the guy had left me.

I survived.

Check out the rest of Thembie’s articles on her blog at thembieterry.co.zw