Within minutes of her regaining consciousness, one of the recovery-room nurses was at her side, reassuring her that everything was fine.

“What about my baby?” Terese asked. She could feel a bulky dressing over her disturbingly flat abdomen.

“Your doctor knows more about that than I do,” the nurse said. “I’ll let her know you are awake. I know she wants to talk with you.”

Before the nurse left, Terese complained about her dry throat. The nurse gave her some ice chips, and the cool fluid was a godsend.

Terese closed her eyes. She guessed that she dozed off, because the next thing she knew was that Dr. Carol Glanz was calling her name.

“How do you feel?” Dr. Glanz asked.

Terese assured her she was fine thanks to the ice chips. She then asked about her baby.

Dr. Glanz took a deep breath and reached out and put her hand on Terese’s shoulder. “I’m afraid I have double bad news,” she said.

Terese could feel herself tense.

“It was ectopic,” Dr. Glanz said, falling back on doctor jargon to make a difficult job a bit easier. “We had to terminate the pregnancy and, of course, the child was not viable.”

Terese nodded, ostensibly without emotion. She had expected as much and had tried to prepare herself. What she wasn’t prepared for was what Dr. Glanz said next.

“Unfortunately the operation wasn’t easy. There were some complications, which was why you were bleeding so profusely when you came into the emergency room. We had to sacrifice your uterus. We had to do a hysterectomy.”

At first Terese’s brain was unable to comprehend what she’d been told. She nodded and looked expectantly at the doctor as if she anticipated more information.

“I’m sure this is very upsetting for you,” Dr. Glanz said. “I want you to understand that everything was done that could have been done to avoid this unfortunate outcome.”