I Wouldn't Have Started The Waiting Room If I Never Had My Ectopic Pregnancy
If you would have told me a year ago that one of the worst things to ever happen to me would eventually lead to one of the greatest blessings in my life, I never would have believed you.
When we transferred our first embryo in November 2025, I finally let myself imagine what life might look like on the other side of infertility. After all of the surgeries, medications, endless appointments, and what felt like an emotional roller coaster that never stopped, I finally saw a future where I was going to be someone's mom. For the first time in a long time, hope felt real.
Our first beta came back at just 25. I remember immediately wondering if that number was too low. My doctor remained cautiously optimistic, but I could tell she was concerned. A few days later, we repeated the bloodwork after the weekend, and my hCG had more than quadrupled to 118. Even though my number had double appropriately, my doctor was still nervous because it was low for how many weeks I was. Our third beta doubled on dot and even though it was doing was it was supposed to be doing, my doctor was still concerned. Then came the fourth beta. It had more than doubled to 1391 and for the first time we finally let ourselves exhale. We thought we were in the clear. We started talking about due dates, imagining what life would look like with a baby and after spending so long protecting our hearts, we finally allowed ourselves to dream.
One week later we walked into our first ultrasound, expecting to see our tiny little baby.
Instead, there was nothing.
I remember lying there staring at the empty space on the ultrasound screen, almost waiting for someone to say, "There she is." But no one did. The room felt painfully quiet. My hCG was continuing to rise exactly as it should, but there was no pregnancy in my uterus. The room felt painfully quiet. My doctor explained that because my hCG had continued to rise, she wanted to send me for more bloodwork before making any conclusions.
The rest of the day felt like an eternity.
That afternoon, my phone rang.
It was my doctor.
She told me my hCG had skyrocketed from around 1,300 to more than 7,500 in just a matter of days. Then she said the words I'll never forget:
"I need you to go to the emergency room immediately. You're having an ectopic pregnancy."
As heartbreaking as it was to hear, I wasn't completely surprised.
For days, I had continued taking pregnancy tests at home and instead of getting lighter or staying the same, they kept getting darker and darker. Something didn't feel right.
When we got home after the ultrasound, I even took another pregnancy test. I remember looking at it and saying to my husband, "I'm pretty sure it's ectopic."
I didn't want to believe it.
But deep down, I think I already knew.
We grabbed our things and headed to the emergency room, no longer hoping for good news, but praying my tube hadn't ruptured. After more bloodwork, another ultrasound, and hours of waiting, our fears were confirmed. Our first IVF pregnancy was ectopic.
In an instant, everything changed. Instead of planning for our future, we were suddenly talking about emergency surgery, recovery and losing one of my fallopian tubes. It wasn't just the loss of a pregnancy. It was the loss of the future we had already started building in our hearts.
The weeks that followed were some of the hardest of my life. I replayed everything over and over in my head, wondering if there was something we had missed or something I could have done differently. I questioned why infertility had already taken so much from us, only to take even more. Even though I had an incredible support system, there was a loneliness that came with infertility that was impossible to explain. It wasn't just grieving the loss of a pregnancy—it was grieving the future you had already fallen in love with while somehow still showing up for work, answering texts, and watching the rest of the world continue on like nothing had happened. I felt completely alone.
Long before my ectopic pregnancy, I had been sharing my IVF journey on TikTok. It became a place where I documented the highs, the lows, and everything in between. It connected me with people all over the world who understood infertility in a way that many people in my everyday life couldn't.
But after my emergency surgery, something shifted.
As I recovered physically, I realized how desperately I wished I had someone nearby who truly understood what I had just been through. Someone I could grab coffee with. Someone who knew why I couldn't stop crying or why I was terrified to hope again. Social media was incredible, but when I put my phone down, I still felt alone.
One afternoon, I decided to do something completely out of character. I opened TikTok, recorded a quick video, and asked a simple question: Is anyone in Orange County going through infertility or IVF that would want to meet up?"
I hit post and honestly didn't think much of it. I figured maybe a handful of people would see it. If I was lucky, maybe a few women would respond.
Instead, the response was unbelievable.
Within days, the video had more than 400 comments from women in Orange County saying they were navigating infertility too and would love to meet. I couldn't believe it. Here I was thinking I was the only one and suddenly there were hundreds of women right in my own community who had been quietly carrying the exact same heartbreak.
It completely changed the way I looked at infertility. We weren't alone. We had just never found each other.
So I planned a meetup.
I had no idea what to expect. I remember wondering if anyone would actually show up. But they did.
30 women who had never met before walked into that first meetup as strangers and left exchanging phone numbers, hugging each other goodbye, and saying something I kept hearing over and over again:
"Thank you— I really needed this."
The Waiting Room was born from a single TikTok video, but what it really grew from was a need that so many of us shared. We all had doctors. We all had treatment plans. We all had appointments circled on our calendars. But what so many of us didn't have was community. We didn't have people nearby who understood why a pregnancy announcement could completely unravel our day or why celebrating a rising beta felt like winning the lottery. We didn't have a place where we could simply say, "Today is really hard," without having to explain why.
What started as one meetup in Orange County slowly became another and then another. Before I knew it, women in other cities were asking how they could bring The Waiting Room to their own communities. Today, what began as one vulnerable post has grown into chapters across the country. Complete strangers have become best friends. They've stood beside one another through embryo transfers, brought meals after surgeries, celebrated miracle pregnancies, mourned devastating losses, and reminded each other that no matter what happens next, they never have to walk this road alone.
Sometimes I think about the version of my life where that ectopic pregnancy never happened. The one where baby girl was due today. Maybe I never would have felt the nudge to post that TikTok. Maybe The Waiting Room would have remained an idea that never existed. And maybe thousands of women who have found lifelong friendships through this community would have never met.
To be clear, I'm not saying I'm grateful for my ectopic pregnancy. I would never wish that pain on anyone. And I don't believe it's helpful to tell someone in the middle of unimaginable heartbreak that "everything happens for a reason." Sometimes life is simply unfair, and sometimes there aren't answers that make the pain hurt any less.
But I do believe that even when we don't get to choose what happens to us, we get to choose what we build from it.
If you had asked me during those first few weeks after my loss whether anything good could ever come from it, I would have told you absolutely not. I couldn't see beyond the heartbreak that was right in front of me.
Now, every time I walk into one of our meetups and watch women who were once complete strangers embrace like lifelong friends, every time someone tells me, "I finally found my people," I'm reminded that something beautiful can grow from places we never expected.
The Waiting Room doesn't erase what happened to me. It doesn't make losing that pregnancy any less painful. There will always be a part of me that wonders who that baby would have been.
But that loss changed the direction of my life.
It led me to a purpose I never could have imagined.
And it became the beginning of a community that now reminds thousands of people every single day that they don't have to navigate infertility alone.
If you're reading this while you're in the middle of your own heartbreak, I won't tell you that one day you'll understand why it happened, because the truth is, you may never fully understand. I won't tell you that everything happens for a reason.
But I will tell you this:
Your story is still being written.
The chapter you're in today doesn't have to be the one that defines the rest of your life.
Sometimes, the chapters we'd give anything to erase become the ones that quietly change everything.
Your friend,
Madison
