Thursday, March 24, 2011

Part 1 - my IUD expelled itself

One Saturday night back in February, my IUD expelled itself.

No, really. It did. I didn't feel a thing. I had no idea it had happened.
To be fair, unlike the majority of IUD users, my periods never stopped, and I had finished my most recent one just two days earlier, so any related cramping or bleeding would have easily gone unnoticed in this case.

In fact, I was so completely clueless that it had expelled, that Jason actually found the IUD. I'll spare you the "how".

I saw my Ob the following Monday, and even he didn't believe me.

Which just makes you feel really good, you know?
He asked how I knew it had been expelled, did I actually see it?

I told him I had it in my purse if he'd like to see it.

He declined.              Hmph.

He did an internal exam, and there are no apparent signs of damage, nor any visible signs as to why this might have happened.

After spending hours on the internet looking up statistics (and each site gives slightly different numbers), I've figured out that there is less than 0.3% chance of this happening.

Looking at all of the statistics I could find there is roughly 5% chance that the IUD will expel itself at all.
But approximately 95% of those occur within the first 12 months of having the IUD.

I'd had mine for nearly two-and-a-half years.

At first, Jason & I were both really upset that this had happened at all.
I mean, I want more babies, but not now, the timing is all wrong, and besides, I'd just had my IUD checked in November and was assured it was just fine.

It didn't take us long though, to realize that if we somehow ended up pregnant from this, then God must just really want us to have a baby. Like now.

But... the fact is that Jason doesn't want more babies. So the whole time I have the what-if-I'm-pregnant-how-will-he-react thing going thru my mind. And... the fact is that our marital problems all started shortly after Jena was born. So let's throw in some anxiety about that starting up again as well, while we're at it.

Later the same week I took a pregnancy test, just to make sure I wasn't already pregnant. You see, with an IUD, you can get pregnant from the moment it dislodges from its position in the uterus, not just from when it expels completely. And there's no telling how long it was dislodged before it actually expelled itself, so... we had to check.
It was negative.

And then... it was a waiting game.
We couldn't start a new birth control until we were 100% sure I wasn't pregnant. So... I found myself in an extended two week wait.

Especially because the IUD had already messed up my cycles, varying anywhere from 2 - 8 weeks in the past six months (one of the reasons I'd had it checked back in November to begin with). And then it expelled suddenly, so... who knew how long my cycles would be?

My ob instructed me to wait until four weeks from my last period. If I didn't start within 2 days after that, then test. If I did get my period, then wait until it was over and test anyway, just to make sure it wasn't implantation bleeding.

Oh, and I had to immediately stop two of the meds my endocrinologist put me on for my insulin disorder, because of the severity of risks involved when taking them if (possibly) pregnant.

And so began weeks of emotional torture. Highs and lows. Confusion. Frustration.

But most of all, weeks of internal struggle.

This could be my chance. Possibly my only chance to have another baby. And Jason couldn't even possibly be upset with me, because it was all a huge fluke, an anomaly, a blip in the statistics.

But... if I were pregnant, what would happen? How upset would he be? Would our marriage make it? What would we do? How would I tell him? What then?


******** to be continued ********

3 comments:

Melissa said...

Really more suspense?

BlazinMama said...

Your killing me!! This is torture for me. I'll be checking your blog page non stop intill you post more. I just learned some basic knitting stuff, so I want to know if I need to start making a baby blanket :) This is almost cruel if I find out that you and Fireman are pregant through a blog.

Jodi said...

I had originally written this entire story as one post. Or started to. But I soon realized that it was the world's longest blog post and I wasn't even close to being done. So I split it up. Sorry, but you're getting it in installments :)

Try to enjoy the ride!

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