The Walz Family Adventures: IUD: Gone rogue

I have had a helluva week. Here we go:

Thursday, I went in for my IUD. 7 weeks post partum, I don't like to chance accidental babies.

It was intensely painful. At one point, I was beating the table with my fist while she inserted it. I didn't remember my last IUD being like that. The good doc was concerned, as I looked very white, and had me lay down for a bit. She said IUDs were weird, her second was much more painful than her first, too. I drove home, climbed my stairs on all fours, gulped some ibuprofen, and slept with a hot pad for four hours. The doc called three times to check on me. I told her I still had some discomfort, but the worst pain was gone, and I'd be fine.

And the discomfort didn't go away. And the bleeding didn't stop. So I checked around over the weekend, and couldn't find the strings. Monday I called, but couldn't work a visit in that day (me, not the doctor), so went in Tuesday. My anniversary!

After a pelvic, Dr sat down, looked me straight in the eye, and said, "I couldn't find the strings. I think when I put the IUD in, I perforated your uterus. I'm so sorry."

And that's why I still love her. Straight forward, owned up to what happened. She told me what the next steps where, called the obgyn she works with, and got my appointments set up for me. I had an ultrasound to try to locate the IUD (it didn't show up).

I said it was better me than someone else. I have a high pain tolerance and I'm a reasonable person.

Perforating a uterus is very rare with an IUD. However, having had two kids and breastfeeding, and still being relatively post partum likely weakened the walls of my uterus. Plus, mine tilts forward, and IUDs don't bend. I had one in the past (between Rory and Andrew) and it was fine. I've been asked if I'm suing, and no. I knew the risks when I went in. Besides, if I sue her, she probably won't want to be my doctor anymore.

Today was the visit with the obgyn. Really awkward having to tell him and his staff about my home births, although his nurse that it was great and loved holding the giant Andrew baby while I got an unexpected pelvic exam (if I'd known, I would have kept the kid with Ryan). He didn't feel the IUD anywhere, and had prescheduled surgery for tomorrow. The plan is a hysteroscopy, to go through the cervix and make sure the IUD isn't still somewhere in my uterine wall. If it is, it can be pulled out and the procedure will be about 5 minutes. If not, we move onto a laparoscopy, which will go through my belly button to look around for it. And then, if that doesn't work, it would be general surgery in a hospital so they could search my intestines for it. It would be, as the surgeon said, "like looking for a grain of rice in a bowl of spaghetti," an analogy that almost made me cry.

I met Ryan for lunch, and got a call from the nurse to go in for a x-ray, one last ditch effort to locate the IUD. I started to get on the table for the x-ray, and they found another complication. I had unprotected sex over the weekend (yay anniversary!), when I thought I had an IUD. So, even though I'm only 8 weeks post partum and breast feeding exclusively and haven't had a period yet and only had sex four days ago, the radiology team was worried I might be pregnant. They had to go ask the radiologist what to do next, and ultimately they decided to do JUST ONE and see if anything showed up.

And, thank goodness, it did. The IUD was near my uterus, so they risked one more x-ray at a side angle and determined it is posterior. It appears to have completely cleared the uterus. I'm hoping they can skip the hysteroscopy completely.

Because this nonsense is expensive. I'm grateful we have insurance, but it's the worst insurance we've ever had. I'm going to ask if the doc can get any part of it negotiated down on our behalf. But again, I knew the risks going in, it's a rare thing. Just very unlucky. She's been putting in IUDs for 20 years and I'm the first time this has happened. It'll be fine. I can still have babies, my uterus has probably already healed. And money can always be made. But I am a ball of anxiety and worried that I will end up with a twilight sleep experience and feel everything.

And now, a lot of pictures, to make this my longest post ever.