(Save The 1) After I conceived my first child in rape, I met my now husband Jeremy who was and is amazing in so many ways. From the beginning, he was just filled with a bright light that I simply could not stay away from. We met through our church when I was announcing for the Oregon Special Olympics and he was managing a group home for special needs teens and adolescents with fetal alcohol disorders who were participating in the competition. I already had a three-year-old child, I was a bit broken and felt like I was “damaged goods,” but Jeremy engaged so beautifully with my daughter, patiently never let me go and loved me despite my insecurities. He stayed with me, loved me, and helped me to heal.
About a month after we met, I moved to Nebraska to sever the parental rights of the rapist, and a couple of months later, Jeremy told me that he knew that it was God’s plan for us to be together, and that he was willing to move to Nebraska to be with me. From the beginning of our relationship, I maintained that I did not want any more children because I had a warped view of the world, and I had witnessed and experienced so much pain. He married me knowing this, and was satisfied to just be a father to my three-year-old daughter.
After the birth of my daughter, I had requested a tubal ligation to permanently ensure I’d never be pregnant again because I was so afraid having been raped and beaten and now a young single mom, but the German doctors refused because I was under 28 years old and did not have at least three children. So they recommended the IUD — a Mirena intrauterine device — to be placed in my uterus order to prevent pregnancy.
I would not recommend the IUD to anyone — it was dangerous for me and could have killed my baby. So a few years later, just a few months after our marriage, I was working twelve hour days Monday through Friday and five hours on Saturday at my job with a large health insurance company. One day, I started having severe pain and fever while at work. My primary care doctor sent me to my Ob/Gyn, after determining that the pain was in the uterine area. She examined me and was immediately alarmed, telling me that was cervix was dark purple, that the IUD and attached fishwire-type removal string were cutting off circulation, wrapped around my cervix and that I was septic. I was put under general anesthesia, the string was unraveled and cut, but the IUD left in place. I was given antibiotics and began to feel better.
One evening a few weeks later, the IUD simply fell out. I called first thing the next morning to replace it. Standard protocol prior to any birth control placement is a pregnancy test, and to our surprise, I had a positive test. So many thoughts ran through my mind: “How could this happen?” And things like,”They probably have a faulty test.” However, they tested again with a blood test and it was again positive. I was not thrilled because I didn’t feel ready at all. I was told that the IUD was a full-proof contraception. And since I was five weeks pregnant, how could my Ob/Gyn have missed that? It meant I was already pregnant when I was septic and that procedure was done. What kind of damage could the IUD, the septic conditions and the surgery have caused my unborn child?…
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Editor’s Note: This article was originally published by Save The 1 and is reprinted here with permission.
