Mirena: My Whole Story

Yay, it's out! Thank the gods.

Now to tell my whole story. It is not a great or terribly positive one, but here it is.

July 31, 2012 - Mirena inserted during period. I took some ibuprofen before the appointment. Insertion was a little crampy but nothing at all compared to period cramps or labor. I weigh 140 pounds, the same as when I became pregnant with Dee.

July 31-Sept 8 - Spotting and light bleeding

Oct 14- Very light, very short "period" with only one day of very light bleeding and a day on either side of spotting. It is around this point in time that I noticed that my depression and anxiety seem to be worse than usual, in that I am more irritable, moody and my Zoloft doesn't seem to be as stabilizing as it has generally been. This continues for the remainder of the time I have the Mirena.

November - My acne becomes worse than it has ever been, even as a teenager. It is painful and awful, and I am embarrassed to be nearly 30 years old with this complexion. I publish this post.

Dec 29 - I am now up to 146 pounds, and have another very short and light period (one day of very light bleeding, a day or two of spotting on either side)

I continue to experience cramping, discomfort, "fullness" and other various symptoms.

April 14 - Visit the OB/GYN office to see why I am in pain. Ultrasound reveals that the Mirena is in perfect position, but it does appear that I am gearing up to ovulate (which can actually happen, just rarely, on Mirena). The nurse sympathizes with my acne and other symptoms but urges me to try and "wait it out." My weight is 149.

May 5-11 (approximately) - I feel melancholy, exhausted, irritable, and begin to feel like I'm experiencing terrible mood swings and PMS. This is weird because while my moods and depression have been worse since getting the Mirena, I have not experienced anything like this. I post this and I begin to feel like I haven't experienced anything like this since I was first pregnant with J (which can basically be summed up as feeling like I was going through the worst PMS imaginable, though of course it wasn't PMS). I have cramps (more than usual) and just chalk it up to the same old crap. I have dreams that I am pregnant and I assume that they are just my brain vomit (however I haven't had many of those in my life since having had kids, and they were predominantly when I was actually pregnant). My weight at this point is 147.8.

May 11 - I start the worst period ever, and also post this. The cramps come in waves (much like contractions...) and I am in so much pain for 3 days of heavy bleeding that I spend as much time as possible on the couch taking ibuprofen around the clock. I have no energy and am just miserable. I used to (before I had kids) have occasional period cramps that made me want to vomit, but these are entirely different.

When I had the Mirena removed on June 10, the midwife noted that it was lower than it should have been (therefore lower than it had been in April). I believe, now, that what happened was this: I was pregnant. No more than 4-5 weeks at the most. I had a miscarriage. I didn't see anything in the toilet because it was very early (and I wasn't really looking...). The contraction-like cramps that I had were, in fact, contractions, and they managed to shift the position of the Mirena in the process of everything else.

I've since had my first period since Mirena removal. It wasn't bad, pretty much a normal period. No remarkable cramps or anything. I have lost 1.5 pounds since getting the Mirena out. My skin is healing and clearing up nicely, though I have some uneven tone and things that are still present. I expect that will take time to disappear.

As far as the miscarriage? I don't know. I feel, in my heart, that is what happened. I never took a pregnancy test. I have no way of knowing now, and I don't even know if it "counts" since I didn't even connect the dots til a few weeks after it was all over. I don't know what I am supposed to feel. Upset? I didn't want to be pregnant...but I would never have said I'd rather lose a baby than to be pregnant again. It's not in the plans for C and I to have a third biological child, for a number of reasons. We want to adopt a child, maybe two. I still want to have 4 kids when all is said and done, but originally we'd planned to only have two biological children. Now...I don't know. I feel like I'm supposed to feel something that I don't, or maybe I do feel something but have no "right" to feel anything because I don't even know for certain I was pregnant.

I know that my experiences were not common. The acne side effect is somewhat rare (I think about 10% get it), but well documented. Pregnancy can happen, rarely (less than a tenth of 1% of the time) and when it does, it may be either ectopic or it may be uterine, but there is a high risk of miscarriage either way.

So there you have it. My story. I would not get the Mirena again.

One More Week!

I am getting the Mirena out in ONE WEEK. Huzzah!

No more cramps.
No more acne.
No more exhaustion (from that...).
No more horrendous PMS-and-periods-from-hell (once was quite enough, thanks).

Oy. It will be *so* nice to be back to normal!

Well, that explains a lot.

You know how I said that the one perk of Mirena was the no periods? Yeah. Guess what showed up today? I guess a six month break is nice, but I don't recall PMS and the first couple days sucking this much. I have been a complete bitch (like to the point that I feel like I haven't taken my Zoloft when I haven't missed any days lately), exhausted, and in desperate need of chocolate. I am kind of afraid of how bad this will get...

*sigh*

Well, at least I'm not spiraling downward again.

Doldrums

Have you seen the movie The Phantom Tollbooth? You know the part where they're stuck in the Doldrums, not motivated or able to do anything, like they're surrounded by molasses? Yeah. I'm kind of stuck like that. I'm not exactly depressed, but just sort of...stalled.

I can't run anymore for a while. I pulled my soleus muscle. This means no stairs, no walks, no runs until it's healed. Dammit. I am limited to yoga and strength training, which is fine but doesn't help satisfy my need to move, to rove, to think. It's stupid and annoying, and I brought it on myself. Basically, I thought that running barefoot/with minimal support would be a good idea when I got shin splints. Well, yes, it did help those...but then my pronated arches (especially my right foot), further "assisted" by the slope of the sidewalks in my neighborhood, put excessive strain on my soleus. The lower portion and the upper portion were unequally worked, and the upper was weakened while the lower was strengthened and then pulled. The result is stabbing agony after about a quarter of a mile, as well as agony when I kneel/sit on my calves (comfy, generally) or when I take the stairs. Or try to stretch/work my calves (going up on the balls of my feet and lowering back down, etc).

Everyone on my floor at work (except me) hates their job. Yeah. Happy place to be every day. I can't do anything about it, my boss is awesome and theirs...are not. But it's not exactly a pleasant environment, it's very negative. 

I'll get over it, but still. Blah. Back to work, I suppose.

Depression Sucks for Everyone.

If you don't regularly read Hyperbole and a Half (or hell, even if you do), you may not have registered that Allie has been on a 19 month hiatus.  She's gone through hell, and thankfully made it through to the other side (almost). What she has written is one of the best descriptions of the process of depression that I've ever come across. So go read it, and send her a virtual hug.

Happy 2nd Birthday to My Sweet Girl

Dee turned 2 today. TWO. Although, if you ask her, she'll tell you she's three. I think that 3 may be her favorite number. She can count to 3, even, and knows how many things add up to 3. Smarty pants.

The stats:
Still tall and skinny!
Height: 34.75" (72ish percentile)
Weight: 22 pounds, 11 oz (20th 5th percentile!)

5-Year-Olds = Awesome

The other day I made hamburgers. C told me I made a "mean" burger. A few minutes later, J happily informed me that his burger was "quite aggressive and delicious."

I love that boy.

Watching, Waiting.

Click photo for source

This is such a beautifully written article in the form of a letter to a child. I love it. It sums up my own feelings on the Bible pretty well, actually. http://momastery.com/blog/2013/03/26/a-mountain-im-willing-to-die-on-4/
Go read it!

I am waiting to hear what the United States Supreme Court decides for our nation. I know what is right, and I know what I want them to decide. That all people should have the right to marry. That all marriages should be treated with equal weight. That to discriminate against those whose orientation isn't straight and narrow in this way, when it is *illegal* to discriminate in other ways, isn't okay.

Do I pray? I suppose you could call it that. I am sending my desires out into the Universe that our Supreme Court does what is right.

Progress!

I ran/walked almost 10 miles last week! You may have noticed, based on my shiny little ticker, that I've now gone 16 miles this year. Wohoo! I did it even in the snow and with shin splints. I had to take a break from the Zombies, Run! app, because after 3 days of running I noticed that my shins were sore. Yeah. Shin splints. I know I am prone to them, but I haven't actually gotten them since I played soccer as a kid! I worked on some stretches and just walked for my next few nights. We also got about a foot of snow in the meantime, so I wasn't going to run through that (and the ice that came with it). Walking was good, and my shins are feeling better. I also finally got around to putting my orthodic (no idea how to spell that) inserts in my shoes, since I imagine part of the problem was my unsupported arches. Wow, I sound so sexy right now.

Ahem. Anyway, I am going to drag at least one of the dogs out for a run/walk tonight (we'll probably even use Zombies, Run! again) and just walk the icy spots where nobody bothered to shovel. I've got my 1.2 mile route pretty well established, so we'll probably just do that one. I've completed one whole mission on Zombies, Run! and part of the next one. I like that when I finish a mission mid-run (I have like 10 minutes left of the second mission) it just puts it into radio mode and plays my music with random commentary, and no zombies. Good stuff!

Oh, and C threw me a surprise party this weekend! He's the best husband ever! He felt bad that I turned 30 right before he was working for 5 weeks straight (including weekends) and we never got to have a party for me. Little J even kept the secret, which is shocking. So I *may* have eaten a lot of crap this weekend... but it was fun!

Running from Zombies (review of Zombies, Run!)

You may recall that I have a fondness for audio fiction. Genre doesn't matter, I love them all. I particularly enjoy full-cast audio drama (like the Drabblecast and Dunesteef). A while back, I saw a new app mentioned on Erica's blog, And Baby Makes Four, that was a good motivator for her to go running (this post, specifically). I checked it out, but the $7.99 price tag for Zombies, Run! was enough for me to forgo the purchase. Weeks (months?) went by, and one of my friends mentioned on Facebook that the app is now 50% off! And while $7.99 is too much, $3.99 was doable, so I bought it.

Dude. This is amazing. I love this app. It basically sticks *you* the runner into the middle of the story, narrated in present tense, full cast style. I won't spoil any of the plot points, but the basic premise is that you have a variety of missions to fulfill while you escape from zombies. You can add a playlist to your phone (if you have the right music app, and create a playlist *on your phone*) that will play your music between the plot pieces of the story. You have the option to add the moaning zombies to your runs, which I haven't done yet because I'm a chicken. Plus I was running at night, and the story is engrossing and spooky enough in the dark without the zombie noises. While you run your favorite route, you will be informed that you've picked up various items (trousers, underwear, tools, etc) and when you finish your run, you press a button and return to base. If you don't finish your mission in one go, you can continue it the next time you run. Because of this game (because, really, it's basically a real-life RPG) I ran 1.9 miles in 22 minutes last night. Okay, so I only ran most of that time. But still, it was great! I'm a bit sore today but that's not surprising. It honestly didn't feel like almost 2 miles.

The app and website are integrated (https://www.zombiesrungame.com/) and you can link your Facebook account if you wish to share your runs with your friends. It also has a way to track your calories burned, and will log your time and distance. It doesn't track your speed (i.e. if you slow down it won't make the zombies get you) and the storyline continues whether you are running or walking. I really, really recommend this game, it is so much fun!

On a related note, I recently got new ear buds. I have freakishly tiny ear canals (like, the doctor has to use a pediatric otoscope to look in my ears) and have a horrid time finding ear buds that stay put and deliver good quality sound. I usually end up buying the $10 Sony or Phillips ones at Target (with just okay sound quality), and then they break 5 months later and I buy new ones (like these). I can't wear the Skullcandy ones, or any similarly styled, "in" your ear type ear buds, because they just fall out of my ears, unless I take off the cushion part completely, and then that just hurts. I found some new ones at Target this weekend, though, that caught my eye. Called yurbuds Inspire for Women, these are actually designed for women's smaller ears! The set came with two sizes of silicon thingies, one larger and one smaller. I'm using the smaller ones. They are comfy, they FIT, they don't fall out, and I love them. They are also sweat-proof. They come in a multitude of colors (I got purple) and they are *so far* awesome. I can't speak to lasting power yet, but so far these are my favorite ever ear buds. At $30, they are more than I would usually spend, but I have hopes that they will last.

I was not paid or compensated for either of these reviews, and the companies involved don't have any idea who I am. I just wanted to share these awesome products with the world!