This is one of my more personal blog posts.
So if you aren’t a woman and don’t give a hoot about
periods/birth
control…etc then stop reading now.
This is your last warning....
After experiencing some pretty severe pains for three
consecutive month’s right before my period, I visited my doctor. He did an ultrasound to look for any
abnormalities and couldn’t find anything.
He said the pain could be endometriosis, but the only true way to find
out is through a diagnostic laparoscopy.
I debated on doing the laparoscopy, thinking even if nothing was found I
would have peace of mind. But after
talking with the hospital and my insurance, that crap is TOO EXPENSIVE right now! So my final thought was getting the Paragard
(non hormonal IUD) removed to see if maybe it’s contributing to the painful
PMS.
**You can read a more in depth post
about that
HERE
I called my OBGYN’s office and scheduled to have it
removed. My appointment was scheduled for Wednesday August 6th. I was nervous about going
in, as I’m sure most women are. There’s
no part of having a doctor in your nether regions that screams EXCITEMENT! I will say the removal wasn’t as uncomfortable
as the insertion. He must have asked me
4 million times if I was sure I wanted it removed….I appreciated that
actually. I feel like a lot of doctors
these days just want you in and out without really caring about your
feelings.
Sidenote: In my mind, I envisioned this little T shaped
device to be totally gross. I mean it had
been inside my body for nearly 2yrs. But
when he removed it, he asked if I wanted to see it – I surprised myself because
I said yes hahahaha. It looked normal…nothing
weird or gross. Maybe after it’s been in
there longer it would look a little rough.
Since the Paragard is non-hormonal I’ve always had normal 28
day cycles. One wouldn’t think removing
it would affect your body. My period was
due August 20th. Well the 20th
came and went, as did the 21st, 22nd, 23rd. We definitely aren’t TRYING to conceive, but I
learned “after” I had the Paragard removed that you should probably avoid doing
the deed without extra protection a week leading up to the removal.
On Saturday I did 2 pregnancy test (both were
ANSWER brand).
One was your normal pee
on a stick; the other was a lab strip like what most doctors offices would use. The stick showed negative, but the lab strip
came up positive within 1-2 minutes. I
was kind of freaked out. How do you get
a positive and a negative on the same day!?!
You can see from this picture - it might have been light, but a positive is a positive
(or at least that's what the millions of fertility/baby/pregnancy forums will tell you)
Compare it to the first positive I received with Persephone
(I actually tested the day my period was due with her)
So the next day, I decided to buy another box, same
brand..same kit. This time both tests
showed negative. Talk about being
confused…I decided to just go to my doctor as soon as they opened on
Monday. Even if I was pregnant, why in the hell wasn't my period here yet. I went in, provided them the appropriate
chalice of gold and waited.
NEGATIVE. Here I am sitting 5
days late, not pregnant and no period.
Mother nature always has a way of being ironic because after I left,
here came my period.
::insert Alanis Morissette's hit::
I asked the nurse why I would have gotten a positive – are false
positives really a thing?! She explained
it was most likely a chemical pregnancy (early miscarriage) – I’d never
heard the term. Apparently they happen
more often than reported because the pregnancy ends before it ever really
begins and your period is just a few days late, so most women don't ever test. In layman's terms: the
egg is fertilized, but never attaches to the uterine wall. Your body starts producing hCG (what
pregnancy tests detect), but the levels eventually drop since implantation
doesn’t occur. I googled and googled the yesterday and it is apparently very common.
When I think of the term miscarriage, I always think of it
being after you’ve heard the heart beat, after you’ve seen that first
ultrasound. I thought about leaving that
word altogether off this post. I don’t
feel like this situation comes anywhere near what most women experience when a
miscarriage occurs. But I can’t say it
doesn’t make me feel a little weird.
Part of me wishes I had never tested in the first place, because I would
never know that something “tried” to happen.
Does that make sense? I feel like even classifying it as a miscarriage is like me complaining about a paper cut to someone who had their hand amputated.
My old trusty BFF is here with a vengeance I might add. I didn't have any of the pains I have experienced in the past few months, but now I'm not sure if that's because my body pretended to be pregnant or if the Paragard is out. Until September....
Now I can go back to being the irritable
Amanda everyone loves so dearly.
