The First Doctors Visit

At the time of my first doctors appointment I'm 10 days late, I've taken two home pregnancy tests, and another at the doctor's office for their records.  I'm sitting in the waiting room filling out tons of paperwork and I'm nervous and scared for what the doctor is going to say.

Once I am in the exam room Dr. S asks me what is going on and I tell her, "I'm 10 days late for my period and I've taken two home pregnancy tests that have both come back positive so I am looking for confirmation that I am indeed pregnant and if so, the next thing to address in the copper IUD that I still have."  She looks at the info in my folder and gives me confirmation that I am pregnant based on the test I had taken just a few minutes earlier.

She then wants to see about this IUD.  She explains that it needs to bee taken out because if it is left in my uterus there is a higher chance than normal of miscarriage and infection.  So, Dr. S initiates an ultrasound but has trouble really seeing anything.  To try and see things better she does a vaginal ultrasound where a lubricated wand is inserted and produces the fuzzy black and white image just like a regular ultrasound does. She sees the embryonic sac in my uterus and she sees what she thinks is the IUD.

There's a problem though.  The IUD has shifted.  Normally it would sit at the base of the uterus like a 'T' with the strings coming out from the bottom of the 'T' and hanging past the cervix.  If it were still positioned that way, she would bee able to pull those strings, without ever going inside my uterus, to get the IUD out.  I should mention that before she noticed the IUD, Dr. S said that if she takes it out there is a 25% chance that I will miscarry because it is possible for the IUD to puncture the embryonic sac as she takes it out.  However, taking that 25% chance and removing it is better than leaving it in as the chances of miscarriage and infection are even higher.

So, my IUD isn't sitting normally.  Dr. S doesn't know why, it could bee a number of reasons for why it shifted but it is now lying on it's side like '|--' and it is further up in my uterus.  This means that the strings, which is the only real way for them to pull the IUD out, have also been pulled up into my uterus and are not hanging past my cervix.  The entirety of the IUD is in my uterus and they don't have a way of getting it out safely.

Now that we were pretty sure that the IUD wasn't coming out, Dr. S said that there was a 50/50 chance of having a normal pregnancy.  If it isn't normal, I would either miscarry or get an infection.  I should have asked more questions at that point but was too overwhelmed with all of the news I was getting.

Oy vey (my apologies for possibly spelling this wrong)!  I didn't know what to do from there.  It was kind of out of my hands.  Dr. S requested that I get a very comprehensive ultrasound and blood work panel done just to fully verify the position of the IUD and make sure that the pregnancy was progressing as normal by analyzing my hormone levels.  After all that I would come back to see her at the end of the week.

After leaving the doctor's office I called Josh and told him everything that was going on.  I cried and cried, but knew that I didn't have all of the answers yet and hoped that I would get some at my next appointment.