Persevering Momma

Taking The Day One Spoon At a Time

Why IUD’s Are Not For Everyone

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I am going to take you back in time to tell you a story.  An important story for women considering getting Mirena or any other form of IUD on the market. Please do your research and make sure that it is something for you and your body.

Mirena_IUDNow let me take you back in time to 2008.  I was 21 years old. It had been months since I had birthed a beautiful baby girl, whom I gave up in an open adoption.  I knew I was not really ready for children which meant I wanted a long term birth control option. I read up on lots of different options, but did not look up statistics for any.

I could blame it on s lot of things. I was young and stupid. I was also doing it all without help. My boyfriend at the time did not want to help me out with the decision so, I took the leap and decided that I was going to get Mirena.  I thought an IUD made sense; I didn’t want children for years and my ob/gyn did not have any concerns about giving it to me.

She was actually the one who brought it up. I saved up the money for the birth control because it was not covered by my health insurance at the time. (That right there should have been a red flag telling me to stop.)  I had the appointment where she performed the procedure implanting the Mirena IUD.

ct-scannerI went home sore but happy. It wasn’t until two months later that I realized the IUD was not where it was supposed to be.  I quickly made a doctor appointment and had to have an ultrasound performed. I was correct it was no longer in my uterus.

The IUD had cut through the uterine wall and was now floating outside of it really close to my left ovary.  It took awhile for me to be able to have surgery to remove the IUD.  I did not trust doctor who performed my C-Section and inserted the IUD so I went and found myself a new doctor that I felt like I could trust.  She had me get a CT scan to see exactly where the IUD was to see if there was a high risk of puncturing my ovary.

Thankfully, the risk was not super high as my body had created scar tissue all around the IUD so that it could not move around.  I was very thankful for this because it meant I would be able to have a laproscopic procedure which would be outpatient so I would not have to stay in the hospital.

Following my CT scan I had a final appointment with the doctor before my surgery in which she explained to me exactly why my IUD had punctured my uterus.  It turns out that I have what she called a flat uterus.  The shape of it does not do well with IUD implants and they have found that most patients with a uterus like this have complications and most doctors will not implant an IUD into someone like me because of the risks.  My previous doctor should have known this from a simple ultrasound which was performed.  I am still unsure why my first doctor did not say anything, but I warn you to be careful when you are getting an IUD.

I went home from that visit upset because I did not want to have surgery, but I knew that it was necessary.  The surgery itself was easy enough.  The doctors knew to watch me when they put me under anesthesia as I do not wake easily from it, but I woke within a few hours and they gave me medicine and said that I was free to go.  My boyfriend and I were also shown pictures of the whole procedure.  I think he still wishes he had never seen those images, but I healed up easily since it was a simple laproscopic surgery.

I know that I will never take having something inserted in me lightly ever again.  I hope that you do the research before you choose to do something like this.  I am also in no way trying to say that something this crazy will happen to you or everyone out there, but I do want it known that there are complications that can occur and this is one of them.  I was lucky, but the story could have been a lot worse.

The Struggle of 12 Miscarriages and 2 Ectopic Pregnancies

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You followed along faithfully through my journey of PCOS and Endometriosis, but my story takes a very sad turn and here is where it gets even more personal.

Fetus week 9-10 (Photo credit: lunar caustic)

I shared with you about one of my miscarriages on the post about endometriosis, but after I gave birth to that second beautiful baby my husband and I decided we wanted more and we tried. I had no trouble getting pregnant to him he had an abnormally high strong sperm count, but I just could not bring these babies to term.

I would miscarriage anywhere from 6 weeks to 18 weeks. The later term miscarriages where the worse. The one that sticks out the most is when they decided to induce labor after the babies heart had stopped and make me deliver, granted the fetus at 18 weeks is about the size of a medium potato, the pain is not physical but the pain in my heart will last a lifetime.

They found out later one of the problems was I did not produce progesterone in early pregnancy. If I have every given advice in my life to a woman who miscarried and could not find a reason, it would be this “PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE Insist your doctor just let you try the progesterone suppositories” You just never know!!! They found this by fluke, it’s not something they really test or even look for. If your doctor refused, look for another doctor who won’t. It won’t hurt you!

Ectopic Pregnancies
Schematic drawing of variuos types of ectopic pregnancy. N=normal nidation a=peritoneal (abdominal) pregnancy b=cornual pregnancy c=isthmic tubal pregnancy d=ampullar tubal pregnancy e=fimbric tubal pregnancy f=ovarial pregnancy g=cervical pregnancy h=intramural pregnancy (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

My ectopic pregnancies came where my last two pregnancies. The first one I went into the hospital in pain but it did not rupture but the doctor who was on call rushed me for emergency surgery, instead of giving me a medicine that could have easily dissolved the pregnancy. I found this out 2 years later, that, that tube could have been spared and the second ectopic pregnancy may have never taken place.

The second ectopic pregnancy was an emergency situation, it burst at 6am in the morning and I did not know. I was uncomfortable, but I was very very hot. I got out of bed and went to take a shower to cool off. It was my oldest daughter who found me in the shower passed out. My husband (at the time) got me out and I remember talking to him but not what was said. He called 911, I remember the ambulance drivers asking me if I could walk, but at this time I could no longer speak. I remember being in the hospital and the anesthesiologist asking me questions to which I thought I was responding to, but nothing was coming out of my mouth, till I screamed at her I had already answered her.

My husband (at the time) told me my mouth was moving but no words where coming out, until I bellowed that scream. I was in pain and what I didn’t know then was I was internally bleeding so bad the blood was pulling around my heart and I was going into cardiac arrest.

Ectopic PregnanciesI remember hearing she may not make it. That was the last I remembered, then I woke up and found out I had to get blood transfusions and I would never have children again under any traditional method. That was something I learned ten and half years ago. I have never come to terms over it; I am still a bit bitter about it. Especially when I read about bad parents or mothers killing their babies and sticking them in trash cans.

After this ectopic pregnancy, my husband of the time, decided to walk out and start a new family.  What made matters worse about that is the constant lies from him, about wanting to fix our family, only to find out 5 months later he was expecting a child with someone else. Knowing I could not have children, I think this was the ultimate slap in the face, but in the end I will be ever grateful for him for giving me that lovely daughter you read about in the endometriosis post.

But, this is not yet the end of my story. I have one more installment and I am sure many of you are wondering what could possibly be next, but my next post is where I really need the readers of Parsimonious Pash to give me there insights. I am struggling with a very hard decision.

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Seriously… Secondary Infertility Endometriosis What?

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EndometriosisAs if my story ended with the PCOS life had to take a wicked turn. That beautiful little Christmas baby is older now and I wanted another child, as I told my story about her and her father passing away, I am now into the future in another relationship and the discussion of having another child is there.  We know we will face battles, but lately I have been worn down, very tired and for some off reason sex is very painful now.

 

Back off to the doctors, they can’t figure out what’s wrong, go figure this is starting to become a pattern with doctors not knowing anything. Keep in mind I am being shipped off to Pittsburgh where some of the top doctors are. I have seen all types at this point and many different gynecologists, including a female who was ex marine and she was enough to put me off seeing gynecologist’s period. I swear she thought she could.

English: Pills Polski: Pigułki
English: Pills (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

 

Off to a new doctor, who tells me everything I have sounds like Endometriosis. He decided drugs where the choice of treatment. I was given everything under the sun, but the biggest was Lupron shots, which I gave myself, it was horrid I ended up with so many side effects and his idea of treating those where MORE meds!!! I was on so much, I was run down and miserable and then I had a TIA, which is a mini stroke from all the medications. I was done, I went off them all and said I would suffer, but during the course of all this the Endo got worse and the pain was debilitating.

 

I ended up having to see a pain specialist who started me on Percodan, that’s basically Percocet without the acetaminophen in it, since I am allergic to it. For those that don’t know, acetaminophen is the main ingredient of Tylenol.  When that stopped working they moved me to oxycontin, then to dilaudid and finally to a fentanyl patch.  I was a drooling idiot, but I was pain free. I was also missing out on watching my daughter grow up, she was between the ages of 4 and 5 while all this was happening. I couldn’t even make it down a driveway without falling asleep and drooling from the fentanyl. Enough was enough, I decided I was going to let them do more surgery at this point, we are up to about 16 surgeries between the endometriosis and the PCOS so why not another to have them “scrape” the endometriosis out.

 

Now this is where my story gets a little crazy. I am admitted into the hospital, pre surgery and a couple comes into my room and asks to pray over me. At this point, I don’t care what religion comes into the room, if they want to pray so be it, I am in pain and I just want it to stop. They pray over me, the woman has her hand on my forehead the entire time. I am a little freaked by this, but Eh, whatever.  I was raised Roman Catholic, later converted to Christian, but I can honestly say, while the prayers were of a Christian nature I had never heard anything like this before. It was also my first experience with someone talking in “tongue” which really freaked me out if you’re clueless about it.

English: localisation of endometriosis Deutsch...
English: localisation of endometriosis (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

 

Okay back to the morning of surgery, I am prepped I am ready to go; they still have me on some heavy meds so I am very groggy.  I remember being wheeled down, but that’s it. When I woke up, I was still too medicated for the doctor to talk to me, so it wasn’t till that evening it comes into my room, sits down and says, well we have a problem, but it’s a good one. How is any problem a good one? I mean seriously, the word good and problem should never be in the same sentence.

 

So here is my good problem in a nut shell. When they went in to clean up the endometrioses, (oh and btw, it wasn’t just in the female areas, I had it also in a cavity in my back, on my kidneys, liver and stomach.) they found absolutely none!

 

Gasp! What? Now what’s wrong with me was my instant thought, how could I go from being the worst case the doctor ever saw to having absolutely none? Was it the power of prayer? Who knows, I have my own personal feelings on that, and don’t want to make this a religious post. But, they prayed, it’s gone and to this day I have never suffered from endometriosis again!

 

I was able to get pregnant straight out the gate, but sadly I lost the baby at 8 weeks. We had moved and I was seeing new doctors, the one I thought was good until I lost the baby and was crying and he decided to be rude and tell me “Oh well, it happens, get over it” How do you ever get over something like that, when you have been trying for years.

 

4 months after that I got pregnant again, I had a very harsh pregnancy and kept going through early labor. I was put on terbutaline to stop the contractions, at one point I had to be given shots of magnesium sulfate and let it be known that they where to save the baby over my own life, due to the fact this medication can have very bad effects on the mother and the mothers heart. Luckily we were fine, I suffer from heart problems now, that they think where aggravated by the magnesium and just made hereditary heart problems show up earlier then they would have.

 

I had so many early labor episodes, when I finally went in to have her nurse was sort of cold towards me and told me I was not in labor. She checked me and I was 1 centimeter and she was not even willing to call a doctor. She sent my husband down to get discharge papers. I was hitting the call bell screaming I had to push and she told me she would “humor me” and check. Well she checked me, and the baby was crowning, she had my husband called for to get back to labor and delivery stat, and she called my doctor finally, but he would never make it on time. I was seeing a high risk pregnancy doctor and a neo-natal specialist were supposed to be on call when I delivered. Due to this nurse’s action, the only person they could get there was a midwife, not knocking midwives, but she was not equipped to handle a delivery like mine with all the complication. She barely made it though; my daughter was delivered in a bed that was not prepped, by a nurse who kept demanding I not push. Sorry, women have been delivering babies for centuries and when its time, its time.

 

That little girl I was carrying is now 9 years old, active and for the most part healthy. She does have three forms of epilepsy, but, it’s managed with medicine. I would include a picture of her, but her father and I are divorced and our court order states her picture cannot be posted online, unless it’s private.  You will just have to take my word on the fact she is one of the most beautiful kids in the world.

 

Do you think this story ends here? Hardly, I wish, but it doesn’t. This is just one more installment in the long battle I have had with infertility issues.

 

 

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