Paraguard, False Positive

I am not a very private person but this post definitely falls outside my comfort zone. However, a recent experience has prompted me to share this since perhaps it will help someone else. Hey there, Intranets, here's ya goes! I have a Paraguard IUD. If you don't know what that is, then heyyyy maybe you don't want to read this. I have two beautiful, brilliant children, both delivered via emergency c-section. Carrying another child may or may not be a possibility for me for a variety of reasons. Hence, I have a Paraguard IUD. I sometimes call it Copper Copper Sperm Stopper and if that doesn't amuse you, then heyyy maybe you don't want to read this.

Last Friday, after a week of extreme fatigue and bizarre cramping, I took a digital pregnancy test. The 99% accurate digital pregnancy test indicated PREGNANT.

I spoke with a few close friends about the matter; they encouraged me to go to the ER since an ER would be able to run a urine and blood test. The IUD would need to be removed if I was indeed pregnant.

My experience at the ER was upsetting and I'm choosing not to dwell on that here, proffering up instead the following Public Service Announcement:

If you or someone you love has an IUD and produces a positive pregnancy test, make sure you/she goes to an ER that will run both a urine AND a blood test, and possibly check that the IUD is in place and perhaps even run an ultrasound or an x-ray if necessary.

It turns out that I am not pregnant and that somehow I threw up a false positive. So if you googled "Paraguard, False Positive," here you go. I am a real woman with a real IUD who was really not pregnant after all. As if being a woman was not hard enough :)