Caroline Casanova de Arciniega

Like all other molar pregnancy stories, mine also is painful and frustrating. I was 25, my fiancé 30, when our first pregnancy ended up in a miscarriage (11th week) in September 2001, just 2 days after 9/11. It was the saddest, most painful and upsetting period of my life. I spent days, weeks crying tons of tears for my lost baby and for all other people who have lost loved ones. The world seemed like such a horrible place to live in. How little did I know at that time that there was still more to come…

A week after the D&C on September 14, 2001, my first surgery ever, my job committed me to move away from my fiancé, from theNetherlands to Cuba. I have never been informed any further about the lab results of the miscarriage, nevertheless, I felt like the baby would’ve been a baby girl, thus I nicknamed her "Champ" from "Champion" cause that’s what she’ll always remain to my heart.

After we got married in December 2001, I decided to quit my job and moved back to live with my husband in the Netherlands. It was all so wonderful and exciting, and in January 2002 I felt that my body as well as my soul had enough time to recover from the traumatic experience of the miscarriage. I was ready to take a new deep breath of fresh air.

We tried to conceive and the first period already came late. I ran to the drugstore and bought a home pregnancy test. It showed up positive! My husband and I were exited, nevertheless, due to our past experience, we tried not to have all too high expectations. I had an appointment with my gynecologist scheduled for February 28, 2002. Throughout February I was feeling strongly nauseous and when my breasts stopped swelling around February 20, I sensed that something was wrong. However, I tried to keep believing that I could still be pregnant since I was still having morning sickness.

On February 25, I discovered a brownish discharge, which totally freaked me out. I called the hospital but they just advised me to remain calm and wait for the scheduled appointment. They were the longest three days of my life, I just knew that something had gone wrong and was upset that I couldn’t even bring myself to feel a connection to the perhaps still healthy growing baby inside of me anymore. It made me feel like a traitor and that if my suspicion were to be wrong, I didn’t even deserve to be a mother.

On the day of the appointment, which was supposed to be my 8th week of pregnancy, I was anxiously waiting in the waiting room, hoping with the last strength of my soul that everything would turn out alright, that all the suspicions and anxieties were just due to my hormones. Finally, it was my turn, the gynecologist took my husband and me to the u/s room, and indeed no fetus, no heartbeat, just some unusual placenta. My husband started to get teary eyes, and I felt like my heart was burning out and falling into ashes, but that was just the beginning. Back in the waiting room, a feeling of great emptiness overcame me seeing all the pregnant women and new moms, and there I was, filling out an admission form for yet another D&C. Why me or anyone else at all?!! It's just too heartbreaking for anyone to experience. If there was a god, he sure didn’t love me, and if this was a punishment, I would have wanted to at least know why. That day I began to lose all faith I ever had inside of me.

Four weeks after the D&C, I was called back to the doctor’s office where I was told that the lab results indicated a partial molar pregnancy which were apparently very rare in Holland. The gynecologist not only couldn’t explain to me what exactly it was, but I even got the feeling that she was trying to avoid me!?! She just told me that I would have to monitor my hcg level (which at that time was at 144,000) weekly; to avoid getting pregnant for the next 6 months (!!!); to start taking birth control pill when my first period arrived; and scheduled another appointment a month later, in May 2002. I left the hospital confused and feeling like a total horrific loser not even truly knowing why exactly. I then thought to myself that it would probably be best not to talk about it to other people.

At the appointment in May, I told my gynecologist that I was a little concerned that I still haven’t got my period, after all it has been nearly 3 months after the D&C. She told me that it is a possible side effect from the molar pregnancy and not to be worried since my hcg level had gone down to 16,000. I left the doctor’s office still confused about my condition. Fortunately, my period finally arrived in June and even though the colors were somewhat strangely dark, it seemed to be normal, thus I started my birth control pill.

The next two monthly bleeding to follow were a total nightmare, blood clots, and a lot of it(!), kept coming out for 2 weeks at a time. I felt really weak and fainted on couple of occasions. I called my gynecologist who just told me to remain calm and wait, cause it could be just a side effect of the molar pregnancy. At this point I’d like to mention that meanwhile it was July 2002, 5 months after my D&C! My husband and my mom have gotten considerably concerned about my condition and decided for me to go see my mom’s gynecologist. So I did, I had to travel half way around the globe to Bangkok. There the gynecologist was very concerned about the fact that my hcg level was still at 146 almost 5 months after the D&C and made another u/s which showed that blood tissues have grown back in my uterus. He had my lungs x-rayed, in order to make sure that they have not been affected yet, and scheduled me for a suction and evacuation the following day. A week later my hcg level was down to 2. Thank God! However, my overall blood test indicated anemia and I had to start taking pills for that.

The gynecologist was a little puzzled why my gynecologist in Holland didn’t take any actions much earlier and finally explained molar pregnancy to me while advising me to also look it up in the internet.-How silly of me not to have thought of that earlier! However, all this time, I wasn’t really sure what to look for since my previous gyn. was constantly avoiding any conversation concerning molar pregnancy.

Now that I finally was aware of my condition, I found the strength to get the word out to our families and got backslashed. Besides my husband, my parents and my grandmother, everyone else seemed to want to keep their distances (my parents in-law even tried to put blame on me and make me feel bad about having a molar pregnancy and "bad genes"). Nevertheless, I have to admit that I somewhat tried to understand everyone’s reactions. My sister in-law just gave birth to her second son in May 2002 and my aunt was expecting her third baby in October 2002, thus maybe people preferred to keep their distance to such "bad news" that might just even be "contagious". Yet, this experience was quite painful. I wouldn’t have made it through sanely without my husband and my dog Spike. I felt repulsive and in shame I thought better not to talk about it to anyone anymore until past December, when the topic happened to come up during a conversation with close friends. Their reaction turned out to be very concerned and interested about what exactly a molar pregnancy was. That positive event made me regain confidence to talk about it to a couple of other close friends, who again reacted amazingly nourishing and helpful. This has finally given me the strength to cope with the experience of a molar pregnancy.

I began to read just about every single article and stories on the internet and it has given me back faith that there is hope for a possible happy ending after all. It has now been almost a year since my MP, but the pain is still stinging deep inside of me.