After an emergency operation Emma Jessop thought her pregnancy was over – then along came George!

“In April 2008, Dean and I decided we were ready to be parents,” Emma tells Bounty. “I stopped taking the pill, and just three months later, our journey began!

A stubborn pain

One Sunday in mid-July I almost collapsed with a pain which I could only describe as what labour must feel like. By the evening, it had subsided a little, but being a bit stubborn, I didn’t go to the doctors until the following afternoon.

I did a pregnancy test before I went, but it came back negative. However, my doctor asked straightaway if I could be pregnant, as my symptoms sounded like a ruptured ectopic pregnancy.”

Explaining that she’d already taken a test, Emma was advised to come back in two days if nothing had changed. But a nagging doubt remained, and later that evening she took another test just to make sure.

“Hey presto! – it was positive,” she remembers. “I should have been delighted, but any joy was quickly overcome by worry, as I knew it was probably ectopic as the doctor had described.”

Things get serious

The next morning, Emma returned to the GP, and this time, was sent straight to hospital, where a scan revealed internal bleeding with an empty ‘pseudosac’ where the foetus would normally be.”

“Things got serious,” she recalls. “I was immediately rushed into emergency surgery, told that there was a chance I would need a hysterectomy and informed that it was a life-threatening situation – it was terrifying.”

Thankfully, the operation was a success. “When I came round from the surgery, the doctor came to see me. The ectopic pregnancy was discovered to be on the outside of my right ovary and not in the fallopian tube – and this meant that everything was still intact – relief isn’t the word for it!”

Emma was then given the option of having the sac removed later that day, “but having been through so much already, I decided to go home and let nature take its course” she says.

Not over yet

However, Emma's journey wasn’t yet over.

“A week later, I was recovering well from the ordeal, but when I phoned the hospital for my hormone results, the nurse sounded confused – the hormone levels were growing, not falling! After more scans, it was discovered that the ‘pseudosac’ was in fact not empty at all, it was full of my baby – I was 3-4 weeks pregnant!”

Emma was monitored closely, with scans every two weeks up until the 12 week mark, as there was an outside chance that the surgery, anaesthetic and pain relief drugs could have affected the baby’s development.

“But my pregnancy was a breeze, and I loved every minute - I knew that 'Flump' our little baby was meant to be,” she says.

“When it came to labour, it wasn’t too bad, and my midwife Iris was amazing. I had lots of gas and air, pethidine, and an epidural, and though I needed an assisted delivery with forceps, it was a natural birth.

George, our little fighter is now 10 months old and into everything – he’s perfect – and none of it has put me off having another baby!”

Have you got a story you want to share? Tell us here, and we’ll pay £50 in vouchers for each one published.