A mum has given birth to a "miracle" baby after doctors discovered she was pregnant with a healthy son DURING surgery to remove the embryo. Siobhan Webb, 28, was rushed to hospital at five weeks pregnant with severe cramping and was heartbroken when doctors said she was suffering an ectopic pregnancy.
An ectopic pregnancy is where the fertilised egg implants outside of the uterus, and it is nearly always fatal for the baby, and usually the mother too if left untreated. She elected to terminate the pregnancy with surgery, and said doctors warned they'd likely have to remove at least one of her fallopian tubes, reducing her future pregnancy chances. But during surgery, doctors discovered there was no ectopic pregnancy - and halted the operation.
Further tests revealed she was in fact carrying a healthy embryo in her womb, and seven months on Siobhan and partner Lee Wellington, 29, welcomed son Freddie. The pair from Callington, Cornwall, said he's a true miracle, after surviving surgery, and pre-op medication which could have caused a miscarriage.
They never discovered what caused the shadows to appear on a scan of her right fallopian tube, which led doctors to diagnose an ectopic pregnancy. Support worker Siobhan said: "Freddie is our little miracle in the sense that we were told we weren't going to have our baby and actually, we are! The doctor said my case was very unusual.
"She said they operated, had a look and there was no ectopic pregnancy and there was nothing there on my tube. It was a lot of stress and now we just want to raise awareness that you can be misdiagnosed with an ectopic pregnancy and still have a viable pregnancy but choosing the wrong cause of action could result in losing your healthy baby.
"We keep saying it was a head-wreck moment, and we are just so grateful now that he's finally here. I feel so relieved and smitten that I have my two perfect, beautiful children."
Siobhan, who has a daughter, three, with her ex-husband, had been trying for a baby with her partner Lee for two months before they fell pregnant. When Siobhan started to experience cramping as she had done in her first pregnancy, she believed it to just be her body adjusting to accommodate the baby in her womb.
However, when the pain became excruciating one night in July 2021, the concerned couple rang 111 and Siobhan headed to her GP surgery the next morning. She was transferred to Derriford Hospital where pastry worker Lee had to wait in the car due to covid restrictions while she was told she had an ectopic pregnancy.
After being offered the option of an injection to terminate the pregnancy, children's residential support worker Siobhan elected to undergo surgery. Prepped for surgery to have the ectopic pregnancy removed as well as one or potentially both of her fallopian tubes, Siobhan and Lee comforted each other over the loss of their baby.
Siobhan said: "They did a scan and said they could see a mass in my womb and something on the side on one of my tubes but couldn't work out what it was. They did an internal exam which was really uncomfortable and I was in a lot of pain.
"A doctor told me that what they could see was I was suffering an ectopic pregnancy on my right fallopian tube. It was that horrible feeling of, 'oh my gosh, we are losing our baby'. I was offered an injection that causes your body to lose the baby and get rid of it on its own, or I could have the surgery to remove the pregnancy and one or both of my tubes.
"Because I had my daughter at home, I didn't want to do the injections and wait it out for the baby to be lost at home. I didn't want her to see me in all that pain so I opted for the surgery. It was really scary because I was told if worst came to worst, they might have to take out both of my fallopian tubes if they felt they needed to so I had to prepare for that. Having just one of my tubes would lower my chances of falling pregnant anyway, and both would mean I couldn't have a baby ever again, so I was devastated."
Siobhan underwent a laparoscopy. Shockingly, doctors could find no ectopic pregnancy and terminated the surgery early, suspecting she could still have a viable pregnancy.
A few days later, tests revealed she was pregnant with a baby safely in her womb. She said: "The doctor said my case was very unusual. She said they operated, had a look and there was no ectopic pregnancy - there was nothing there on my tube. They even got another surgeon in to double-check that there was nothing there.
"I asked them what that meant and they said it could mean that I still had a viable pregnancy in my womb but they didn't know yet. I then started to panic, thinking I'd put my body under so much pressure that it could cause a miscarriage. I'd been given medication and I started to freak out.
"The next few days was a lot of bloodwork before they did a scan and could see there was a viable pregnancy in my womb. We went back again for another scan and that's where we could see this tiny, tiny baby with a heartbeat. It was such a shock. We keep saying to ourselves that god forbid we'd gone for the injection, because that would have caused a miscarriage or at least severe development issues with the baby if it had survived."
Siobhan and Lee welcomed son Freddie six days early on March 13 via c-section, weighing 8lb 6oz. She said: "After all this, I developed quite bad anxiety which I've battled with throughout the pregnancy, thinking something bad is going to happen. It has really messed with us being able to enjoy the pregnancy. We weren't able to tell family and friends how we wanted to because with everything that happened, we had to tell them what was going on.
"It was a lot of stress and now we just want to raise awareness that you can be misdiagnosed with an ectopic pregnancy and still have a viable pregnancy but choosing the wrong cause of action could result in losing your healthy baby. It has been really weird because they can't explain what it was they saw on the scan on my tube that could have been there - the doctor's words were just that it was an unusual case."
