Day of Paragard Insertion Two weeks until next period. 9:45 AM : Pre-medicated with 5 ibuprofen at 8 when I woke up. Had slightly high blood pressure when measured at the office, inevitably due to nerves about the procedure. Insertion went as dictated by my RN. She told me that there would be three stages of cramps, and warned me not only when they were coming, but what the strength of them would be. Seriously accurate. They were pretty bad as cramps go, but not bad enough for tears or fainting. I held on to the pressure point between my thumb and index finger and pressed when I was warned that a cramp was coming, and I think that helped to spread the pain, as it were, along with deep breaths. I felt pretty woozy afterwards, but not enough to pass out. Spent about five minutes pulling myself together before dressing and heading home. I was surprised at how I didn't feel nauseous at all, as when dealing with things in the nether regions I tend to get an amount of anxiety which usually leads to a bit of nausea. Was advised to finish out my last two weeks of HBC to help ease into the generally heavy amount of blood that comes with the IUD. On the drive home and for a while after I still felt a bit woozy, but wasn't having any sort of excessive pain. 10:45 AM : So it begins. I took a few more ibuprofen when I got home. Cramps started to come in waves shortly after, not sure how much time in between. Having not slept well the night before I was pretty damn tired, so I tried to sleep, but it was only fitful naps. Had some toast and smoked a bit, but the smoking only made me anxious and dizzy, the cramps were still serious. Boyfriend gave me a hot water bottle, which helped out. I found that gently but quickly rocking myself, or jiggling my legs back and forth, during a cramp helped a great deal. I managed to sleep a surprising amount, I think. Somewhere between 11-1 I came to the realization that this was actually contractions, as my uterus was discovering the strange object that is the IUD and trying to get it the hell out. Needless to say, this shit hurts like hell. All the more reason to not be having none of those babbies. 2:00 PM : Surfaced from my attempted napping and drug-induced haze long enough to make some soup and more toast. Went back to sleep with intermittent cramping some more, by now the level of pain had pretty well lessened. Still goddamn dizzy. 4:00 PM : The smoking had finally completely worn off, thank the gods. Which meant I was no longer dizzy and anxious. I relocated from the living room to the bed for a bit. Still intermittent cramping, but markedly more time in between them. This all just solidified my never smoking again ever. 5:00 PM : Felt well enough to get myself out of pajamas and head to my dad's for a pork chop and fried spaghetti dinner. Still had occasional cramps, but again there was more and more time between them. Spent the rest of the evening chilling in the living room, cramping probably something like every 45 minutes or so. Took a few more ibuprofen before bed, and wasn't in enough pain during the night to be woken up. Probably should have made more effort to drink more water throughout the day.
