Pregnancy After Tubal Ligation

It Happened to Me

In 2004, I was a mother of four rambunctious children, a wife, and worked full-time. My life had not been in a good place when I became pregnant in 2001 with my fourth child and I knew that four was more than enough, so I elected to have a tubal ligation to permanently prevent the possibility of conceiving again. Little did I know, however, that God had different plans for me.

My husband Brian and I had married when my fourth child, Lizzie, was four months old. Though Brian is not the biological father of my children, he loved them as his own and willingly accepted the fact that our family was complete. Yet, there was always the occasional joke about he would still get me pregnant again. I blew it off as a display of testosterone.

Twelve days before Lizzie's third birthday though, I got a sinking feeling. I could not help but notice that I had been going to bathroom quite frequently and I had not been feeling too well. Something just did not seem right with my body. I panicked, thinking of all the horrible things that could be wrong with me. I noticed that my period was a little late, leading me to think I had uterine cancer or something of that nature. While I "knew" I could not be pregnant, I still went to the drug store to buy a test. Why make the doctor waste his time giving me a pregnancy test when he should be running tests to determine the cause of this mysterious illness?

No sooner than I looked at that pregnancy test, the two lines were already clearly visible. "That can't be right," I thought to myself. The doctor had told me during the procedure that only 1.6 percent of tubal ligations fail. While I have had some extremely odd and crazy experiences in my life, there was no way I was pregnant.

I woke Brian up shoving the test in his face, with a blank and jaw-dropped stare. He immediately jumped up with the biggest smile I have ever seen on his face. All he could was, "I told you so!" Despite his bouncing all over the house, boasting of his ability to impregnate me, I still refused to accept what was happening to me. I cannot get pregnant. My family is complete. I did not want any more children.