I am the kind of girl who doesn't do well with hormone birth control. I have been married to my wonderful husband for over 10 years now and have only been pregnant twice. We didn't use any form of birth control before and really after him. Condoms weren't really our thing plus we knew it was hard for me to get pregnant anyway.
I have had a hormone imbalance since I started puberty but didn't know until I was 19 when I was diagnosed with having my first ovarian cyst. Five years after I gave birth to my first child, I became pregnant with my second, a little girl. When she was 6weeks old I had Paraguard (the copper IUD) put in because it was hormone free and the most typical side effects were more normal for me than most so it wasn't a concern.
A few weeks after it was placed, there were a few days where I could feel it in me and it hurt to sit or lay in just about any position. More of an uncomfortable annoying pain. Just very mild and only when I shifted positions. I went in and had my IUD checked out but they said everything was fine. After that the pain and discomfort went away and never returned.
Starting in April (6 months after the pain), I started spotting daily. Enough to have to wear a pad/liner/tampon but not enough for it to be a cycle. In May, my OBGYN gave me a medication (Lysteda) to try to stop the bleeding. It didn't work so he then wanted to wait and see if it would stop on its own.
On July 5th (that same year), in a matter of less than 1 minute, I soaked through an overnight pad (which I wore to take a break from the tampons). So I put in an Ultra (the largest size available) size tampon and put on a new pad as well since I had no idea what was going on. Less than 2 minutes later, I had not only soaked through both of those but also produced a rather large blood clot (The clots are normal for me during my cycles to please don't think that an IUD causes them... that's just how my body works and I have extremely heavy cycles... always have). My husband freaked out at the site of the clot, which I thought wasn't anything big, plus the amount of blood that came out in less than a 5 minute time frame that he took me to the ER to make sure nothing was wrong, including anemia (low iron). Everything turned out fine and I never had that kind of bleeding again.
Then of course we had to put treatment for this on hold while I dealt with my thyroid issues and then the surgery to remove it in Aug.
By October he gave me some sample low low dose birth control pills to take to stop the bleeding. I took them (reluctantly), ended up with the side effects that I wasn't looking forward to but the bleeding stopped. Of course this also meant that I was back to no cycles without taking provera so in February I forced a cycle, seemingly normal for me. The same amount of heavy bleeding with the same amount of clotting.
This past Friday, I had a cycle without medications (something that hasn't happened in almost 9 years. I know a lot has to do with the weight loss since my thyroid surgery and my hormones leveling out so I was kind of relieved that things are falling into place. Then yesterday I noticed that my IUD was half way out. I started flipping out because I am trying to finish school and get a career started before I even consider any more children. I'm actually satisfied with the two beautiful children I have been blessed with. Before I could even call my doctor to let them know, the IUD finished expelling itself. So now I'm unprotected. My husband has switched jobs, so the insurance is new and they don't cover birth control unless it's a medical necessity. They don't cover IUDs at all, which I would gladly have placed again.
With everything that has happened to me since I had my IUD placed, it almost feels like it was my body's way of telling me that it didn't like it and when I wouldn't take it out, it did it for me. I could say that everything that happened was due to the IUD but honestly, I don't have any idea. I had a lot going on with my body health wise that could have caused a lot of the issues.
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