After I had my first little dude, I knew by my six week appointment that babies are HARD. I was in zero hurry to have another any time soon. Time was on my side, since I had my first at 27, so we embraced the idea of a 2+ year gap between kids. I knew I wanted an IUD so I wouldn’t have to worry about taking daily pills.

Fast forward about 19 months, and I happily returned to the doctor’s office to have it removed when we were ready to start trying. In the two years prior, I had light, infrequent, barely-there periods and essentially no other side effects. Getting it removed was a breeze. So about a year later, after another pregnancy and birth, I had no reservations about getting another Mirena IUD. Again, insertion was a breeze, and after my two week check to be sure the strings were where they should be, I didn’t think about it again. Of course, they mentioned to periodically check the strings to be sure it was still in place, but I thought, “honestly, where is it going to go?” and never really worried about it.

This time around, though, I didn’t have the magical barely there period side effect. In fact, I was dealing with the opposite. Frequent, heavy periods, insane PMS and all those unpleasant side effects of being a lady that I hadn’t missed over the past 3+ years. As my baby crept toward his first birthday, I had a nagging feeling that this IUD thing just wasn’t working the way it should, and I resolved to make an appointment to have it removed and switch to birth control pills until we decided we were ready to grow our family again.

I made an appointment with a new midwife in our new town, as we recently moved. I got there, answered a collection of questions about my medical history, and disrobed so she could get that sucker out of there. As much as no one enjoys the “feet in stirrups” appointments, I was relieved to have finally taken 20 minutes to dedicate to my own self care. What I didn’t anticipate was my 20 minute appointment turning into a time-consuming, stressful and expensive ordeal.

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You see, when the midwife went to remove the IUD, the strings were nowhere to be found. What should have been 2 minutes turned to 15 minutes of poking and prodding with all sorts of instruments, in a search and rescue effort, but the strings were just not there. Hm. The midwife said that more often than not, the strings have just drifted into the uterus, and a quick ultrasound can detect where the IUD is, and it shouldn’t be a big deal.

None of this sounded right to me, but I rolled with it and headed up to the waiting room to wait for my ultrasound. After a long wait, a quick transvaginal ultrasound showed a very empty cervix and uterus. My IUD was missing in action. Gone.  So back down I went to the midwife’s office to discuss what to do next. You can’t remove an IUD that isn’t there, right?! But the question was, where was it?

The midwife told me that rarely, the IUD can dislodge and fall out, typically hidden in a clot of blood. She said that she was 99% sure that this is what happened, but on the very rare occasion, the IUD can perforate the uterus and venture into the body. Since I hadn’t been in pain, and this is typically a painful occurrence, she didn’t expect it would be the case, but just to be safe, she gave me orders for an abdominal x-ray to confirm that my IUD wasn’t hiding out somewhere.

Now I don’t know about anyone else, but as I drove across town to the radiology office, I knew in my gut that it had to be in there, because there was no way I would not have noticed an IUD falling out of my body. And it took all of two seconds to find out that my intuition was right. I lay on the table for the x-ray, and the tech asked what they were looking for. I told her, and as soon as she ran the scan and the image popped up, she blurted out, “Oh, there it is!” She immediately apologized, since I’m pretty sure you’re not supposed to get results of any kind from an x-ray until the radiologist reviews it. But then, since she already told me, she let me see, and there, hanging out by my left pelvic bone was the IUD. Just hanging out, you know, not preventing pregnancy like it was supposed to.

The midwife, who was supposed to be in touch within 24-48 hours of my scan, called me 15 minutes later. She told me that she was transferring my care to one of the OBGYNs at the office, who I would need to meet with as soon as possible for a pre-op visit. Yes, pre-op. Now this hobo of an IUD needs be surgically removed. “Oh, and by the way,” she said, “take a pregnancy test, since it’s unclear how long you’ve not been preventing one.” Oy.

The good and bad news – I’m not pregnant. Of course, we weren’t trying to get pregnant {obviously}. But when I heard that we weren’t really preventing a pregnancy, and I saw the stark white pregnancy test, I couldn’t help but feel a little sad. We do want to have a third child down the road, and the idea of getting pregnant without having to “try” – and by not trying, I mean not charting, tracking cycles and OPKs, scheduling sex, living in a months-long state of anxiety/disappointment/frustration/impatience – sounded kind of lovely, especially since our little guy just started walking and seems so much less little these days.

The next day I met with the doctor, who told me that in 26 years as an OBGYN, this was only the second IUD he had seen migrate out of the uterus. Lucky me. Since I wasn’t in any pain, and there weren’t any concerns of the IUD harming any other internal organs, there was no big hurry to remove it ASAP. This was good because my hubby and I were both looking at booked calendars over the next two weeks, filled with work travel, out-of-town visitors and our little man’s first birthday party.

Later this week, the IUD will be removed. Hopefully uneventfully. The procedure is supposed to be fairly non-invasive and laparoscopic, though I will be put under general anesthesia for it, which comes with its own set of risks.

I’ll probably start back on the Pill while we bide our time until we’re ready for a third. And in the meantime, if you’re using an IUD and genuinely do not want another child, be sure to listen to the doctor and check your strings once a month or so. Nine hundred ninety nine women out of every 1,000 don’t deal with this, so for most people, this is the perfect birth control. If this happened to me, I don’t think this would dissuade me from using an IUD, so that isn’t the intention of this post. Just listen to your doctor, and even more important listen to your body.

Stay tuned…