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How An Ectopic Pregnancy Led Me To Support Samahope’s 10,000 Lives Campaign

I participated in an Influencer Activation on behalf of Influence Central for the Cigna Foundation, in partnership with Samahope.  I received a promotional item to thank me for my participation.

The Cigna Foundation has partnered with Samahope to help raise awareness and funds to improve the maternal health and safe childbirth resources provided to women around the world.

Do you remember the moment you first discovered you were pregnant?  I do!  I wasn’t feeling very good that day and was tired.  So out of the blue, I purchased a pregnancy test from the 99. store (yes, they do have them!) and soon learned that I was having a baby.  Oh, the feeling of joy!

However, that feeling of excitement quickly vanished a few weeks later when I learned I had an ectopic pregnancy.  One afternoon I stepped out of the shower and had shooting pain on the right hand side of my body.   I immediately went to the ER where they could not find the baby on the ultrasound.  However, my HCG hormone continued to rise.  It was a mystery.

A few days later I went back to the doctor for a second ultrasound.  There was still no sign of life.  So finally, my OBGYN sent me to a different hospital to get a second opinion.  This time the ultrasound tech located the baby, but he/she was not in the right location.  Instead the baby was in my right fallopian tube and showed no signs of viability.

The Cigna Foundation has partnered with Samahope to help raise awareness and funds to improve the maternal health and safe childbirth resources provided to women around the world.

What is an ectopic pregnancy?

An ectopic pregnancy (also known as a tubal pregnancy) is when an embryo implants itself in the fallopian tube instead of the uterus.  It can be dangerous because the embryo can rapture and the woman may lose her fallopian tube, making it hard to get pregnant again.  An ectopic pregnancy is also difficult to diagnose because symptoms often mirror those of a normal early pregnancy.  Pain is usually the first symptom to appear.

Once my doctor found out it was an ectopic pregnancy, she rushed me into emergency surgery.  A few hours later I woke up with feelings of complete grief and sadness.  I really wanted that baby!

Then Six months later I got pregnant again, but suffered a miscarriage.  Finally, in December 2006, I was blessed to give birth to my first child, a son (AKA Field Trip Boy!).

The Cigna Foundation has partnered with Samahope to help raise awareness and funds to improve the maternal health and safe childbirth resources provided to women around the world.

The Cigna Foundation has partnered with Samahope to help raise awareness and funds to improve the maternal health and safe childbirth resources provided to women around the world.

Then in 2009, I have gave birth to my second baby.  This time my daughter (AKA Field Trip Girl!).

The Cigna Foundation has partnered with Samahope to help raise awareness and funds to improve the maternal health and safe childbirth resources provided to women around the world.

I was fortunate enough to have access to the health care that I needed at the most troubling time in my life.  I felt confident that my medical care was done in a safe and clean environment.  Sadly though, not everyone in the world is so lucky, because every two minutes a woman dies from preventable causes related to pregnancy and child birth.  That’s a staggering statistic!

Samahope’s 10,000 Lives Campaign

Therefore, Cigna Foundation has partnered with Samahope to help raise awareness and funds to improve the maternal health and safe childbirth resources provided to women around the world. Samahope enables anyone, just like you and me, anywhere to directly fund doctors’ life-changing medical treatments for women and children in crisis.  The Cigna Foundation is supporting Samahope because of its focus on helping women overcome barriers to their health and well-being related to factors such as ethnicity, race, gender, age, geography and economics.

This year’s Cigna Foundation World of Difference grant to Samahope is helping to train local nurses and fund doctors in countries around the world to provide treatment and surgery for people in need.

The Cigna Foundation has partnered with Samahope to help raise awareness and funds to improve the maternal health and safe childbirth resources provided to women around the world.

The 10,000 Lives Campaign is on a mission to protect the lives of women and children around the world!  Their goal is raise enough funds to provide birth kits for 5,000 moms + 5,000 babies = 10,000 lives.  But they are only half-way there!  They need your support!

With a donation of only $5, you can help fund a birth kit that includes the sterile tools to enable a Skilled Birth Attendant to protect a mother and child from life-threatening complications during childbirth.  Now that’s a life worthy cause!

To make a donation to Samahope’s 10,000 Lives Campaign, please donate here.

Thank you for your support!

Jilleen

Alida Fiametta Rodriguez

Friday 11th of November 2016

Thank you for sharing this incredible cause. Bless you awesome mama.