Yeah, you read that right. I had many possible titles for this post: My Missing Mirena, or rather, My Misplaced Mirena (because SPOILER ALERT, I found it). I even considered LongLegsBigUterus, but that didn’t really seem justified. I think it’s normal-sized. Things just go missing up there. It’s the Bermuda Triangle of the woman’s world.
As much as I try to keep my blog light, I also try to keep it real. And as they say on The Real World, “this is what happens … when people stop being polite … and start getting real.” This is the story of my last week, which was one of the most emotionally taxing weeks I’ve had in recent history. Quick warning: this blog may be what some people would call TMI, but whatevs, it’s already on Facebook, so what’s the big diff between my private Facebook and the public internet for all to see for all history, right? Plus, I’m doing a public service here, supposedly this is a relatively normal problem. More on that later.
My saga started with a normal doctor’s appointment. Thanks to recent research, women only need to go for normal gynecological exams every 3 years in their 20’s now, and every 5 years in their 30’s. These appointments used to be annual. I tell you this because it is a crucial fact. I had not been there in YEARS. So fast-forward to the very end of the appointment. As the doctor is still doin’ his thing. I’m just hangin’ out in the stirrups (guys, if you don’t know what I mean, google it), and I hear the doctor go, “HUH!” Just like that. With an exclamation mark. Now, you don’t have to be a woman to know that you never want your doctor checkin’ things out inside you and remarking “huh!” like he’s stumped. Doctors are supposed to know ALL THE THINGS.
Then the doc says, “alright, we’re all done. In case you were wondering why I said ‘huh,’ it’s because I can’t seem to locate your IUD.”
Me: “I don’t understand.”
Doc: “Well, it happens sometimes. It could just be the strings are nestled up in your cervix. Or maybe not.”
Me: “Excuse me??”
Doc: “Yes, well either way, you should probably check up on it, in case it has somehow migrated or come out.”
Me (in my head): “WHAT THE F*&^%. HOW IS THAT POSSIBLE!? I DID NOT KNOW THAT WAS AN OPTION?! HOW COULD IT HAVE COME OUT? I THOUGHT THAT BY GOING THROUGH TERRIBLE PAIN IMPLANTING THAT SH*& IN PLACE THAT IT WOULDN’T JUST FALL OUT?!”
Me: (out loud… trying to be rational): “If it wasn’t in there… wouldn’t I pregnant?” (Sorry Mommy…)
Doc: *shrugs* “Yeah, probably. But we want to be sure.”
Me: “So… I’m scared to ask but, is it possible my IUD has been missing for 3 years?”
Doc: “It’s possible.”
The doctor then wrote me a prescription to go to a radiologist to get an ultrasound to try and “locate” it. Of course it’s just my luck that my doctor does not have a single ultrasound in the office. So I had to go somewhere else, try to get an appointment, pay an additional copay, and the worst part – I had to WAIT.
I immediately left the office and posted on Facebook, as one does when a piece of plastic goes missing inside one’s uterus.
As you can imagine, I received 18 comments. Mostly horrified women not knowing this was an option. Sort of like me. Some comments were from men. Funny comments like “Have you checked your pockets?” LOL. JK I didn’t laugh out loud. I didn’t laugh at all. This was not funny!
Seriously though, this is not a tiny contraption. How could it have disappeared?? This photo is from the Mirena website. It’s not something you’d “accidentally misplace in your body.”
The second I got to work I called the radiology office and tried to schedule an ultrasound. I had no qualms about screaming “transvaginal ultrasound” through the phone while sitting at my desk. All I cared about was finding my missing Mirena.
I scheduled an appointment for two days later, and the receptionist told me to “make sure I had an empty bladder” when I arrived. *eyeroll* *fake barfing sound*
When Friday arrived, I left work early to go to my appointment. I was so nervous, I left work an hour earlier than necessary, by accident. I had found out two days before, at my other doctor, that my file at had been marked with “white coat hypertension” for years, i.e. I freak the F*&^ out when I go to the doctor so my blood pressure skyrockets. They always have to take it multiple times. So of course, getting to the doctor an hour early to freak out even more is exactly what I needed.
I had spent the previous night googling how much this procedure was supposed to hurt. According to google, not too much. *SIGH OF RELIEF* However, as I got deeper into my googling, I became more and more scared. Pierced uteran walls? Migrating IUDs all the way up to the abdominal cavity? Should I have felt pain? Was there bleeding? Not that I was aware of… but maybe sometimes when I’m sore from exercise it was really my plastic IUD piercing through my internal lady-parts. There were blogs on blogs on blogs about this. This should have made me feel better – I wasn’t alone! But no. As one usually does when WebMD is involved, I started to imagine the worst: FIRE, BRIMSTONE, AND DEATH!
As I sat in the waiting room, I tried to practice yoga breathing. I’m no good at yoga breathing. My hands were shaking and I was reading the same paragraph in Hillary’s book about Russian internet trolls over and over again. Finally, the receptionist called me to pay yet another copay:
Receptionist: “You’ve been drinking water, right?”
Me: “Um no? They specifically told me on the phone to have an empty bladder.”
Receptionist: “Oh, because they booked you for the wrong kind of ultrasound. You need to be drinking. I’ll check with the tech.”
Tech: “Yea, you need to have 100-120 ounces of water. I’ll come back in 15 minutes.”
Good thing I was early! I started waterboarding myself. Chugging like an 18-year-old at her first frat party. (Sorry again, mommy.) I drank cold water so quickly that I became freezing. My whole body was covered in goosebumps and my hair was standing on end. I officially gave up on my book and started trying to play along with “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire” on the tv to distract myself as I chugged water. (By the way, fear of palindromes = aibohphobia.)
Finally, the tech told me I had drank enough water and called me back. Maybe she took pity on me because she saw me shivering.
Before the ultrasound started, the tech told me that she was going to go look for the IUD. And I said, “well, it has to be up there, right? Like, I’d notice if it came out?” To which she said, “you’d be surprised; it’s happened before where I go looking for an IUD, and instead I find a baby! HAHA”
… excuse me!? NOT HAHA. NOT FUNNY AT ALL.
It was my lucky day, I got to have TWO kinds of ultrasounds! The kind you see on TV where they put gross jelly/lube on your abdomen, AND the kind where they stick a huge dildo-y thing up inside you. For that second one, she let me put it up inside me myself. At least there’s that.
The tech saw me craning my neck to see the screen, so she tilted the screen toward me. I couldn’t see anything. After a few more excruciating minutes of silence, she said “ah, there I think I see it. See those white shadows?” I didn’t see it.
After a few more minutes, she said she was finished. I felt like Rachel in Friends where she started crying because she couldn’t see her baby on the sonogram, and she lied to say she saw it because she didn’t want the doctor to say she was a terrible mother because she couldn’t even see her own baby. (This video… at 2:47).
Of course I told the tech about feeling like Rachel, because I am awkward and weird. To which the tech said “Yea, I remember that, and she thought she’d be an unfit mom because she couldn’t see it. At least you don’t have to worry about the mom part!” GURL PREACH.
I asked the tech if that meant everything was ok, and I was in the clear. She said she was only a tech, and she had to send the photos to the doctor to read them. She said he would “probably” get back to me within a week.
At this point I was pissed. I was like EXCUSE ME? I ALREADY WAITED DAYS.
But of course, there was nothing I could do. I just went home and peed every 10 minutes for 4 hours thanks to the 20 pounds of water I had chugged. And waited. And waited.
Finally, after a very very long, celibate weekend, I texted my doctor on Klara, and he confirmed that the IUD was in place, and it was “working for contraception.” He told me the strings were probably just folded up, and when it came time to replace it, in 2-4 more years, I’d have to see a specialist with an ultrasound.
Saga over. Thank the lord.
I write this as a cautionary tale, not to scare you into going to the doctor every 6 months, but quite the opposite. I just want to let you know that it can happen. And to try to calm your fears about it. According to the world wide web, it’s relatively common.
I love my IUD. It’s no fuss at all. This is the first worry I have had about it in the three years since I’ve had it. It’s so easy that it could have been missing for years, and I wouldn’t even have known! Even with this minor blip, I still would recommend it to anyone. My doctor said that if you don’t plan to have a child in the next year, he recommends it. And it lasts up to 7 years!
If you have any questions, I’m clearly an open book, so feel free to ask! Hopefully this is the last I will be writing about it because I plan to try and forget about it for a few more years.
Signing off,
LongLegsProtectedUterus