My name is Tanya. I am 36, and a mother of 7 children. My youngest child is now 21 months old. After research and a lot of soul searching, I made the decision to get Essure. I understood that this device was not 100% effective, but I also was glamorized by the no cutting, and the fact that this device released no hormones. All my births were normal delivery, and so I did not want to be cut on. Plus, I have tried other forms of birth control which have released hormones, and my body had very negative reactions such as excessive bleeding for prolonged periods of time. My doctor asked me multiple times beforehand if I was sure that I did not want anymore kids, and the doctor also made it very clear that this procedure was permanent.
I continued to use other forms of protection until I went in for my confirmation test. After my test was confirmed positive and the doctor informed that it was okay to rely on the Essure, I did. Everything was great for me as far as the Essure was concerned. Essure was a woman’s best kept secret as far as I was concerned. For me, mentally processing the fact that I could not have children was what I struggled with. I knew that I did not want anymore kids, but saying that I ‘could not’ was a process, a long process. I wondered if God would punish me for getting fixed since it was not an emergency situation. About a year after my confirmation test my daughter told me that she was pregnant, and I believed at that moment I accepted the Essure finally because I felt that this was how it was supposed to be. So I turned my mental state around to focus on my soon to be grandbaby and my daughter. I was beginning to grow and bond with my two young children at home and start to plan our futures. Life was good.
In June, 2014, we began to plan my daughter’s baby shower for August and look forward to the arrival of little Miss Mia. On June 28th my menstrual cycle was short and three days late, but with everything that was going on I did not think much of it and believed it to be stress and excitement. About the middle of July I woke up one day and it burned when I urinated. I thought it may be a UTI, bacterial, or yeast infection (something woman get on occasion), so I made an appointment for the OBGYN. I was in a rush that day so I asked if I should just do a UA and explained my symptoms and thoughts. My UA came back clean so they suggested that I take some AZO and I made an appointment for the following week to see the doctor. I bought the AZO and took it for about two days, but it made me cramp real bad so I stopped taking it. The symptoms did not go away, and within that week I noticed that on the day that I was supposed to go to the doctor, I was 5 days late on my period. When I arrived at the doctor I explained this and thought it would be funny to take a pregnancy test. Boy was I wrong. The look on the doctor’s face would say it all. I was told my pregnancy test came back positive. I wanted to blow my head off. The doctor assured me that he has had false positves before so I needed to go and have some blood drawn to check my HCG levels or something. I asked to go directly to the hospital for the blood draw, and I did. I called the doctors offfice 45 mins after the draw for my results, not good. The nurse informed me that my HCG levels were off the charts. I became an emotional wreck because this was unknown waters for everyone involved, even the doctors. The next step was to get an ultrasound the nexy day. My doctor explained that if I was pregnant then they needed to find out where the pregnancy was located. With the Essure it was a possibility that the pregnancy was in the tubes because I had the procedure done more than a year prior to this with a passed confirmation test. I want to say that after my passed confirmation test I did nothing to prevent pregnancy because I was told that there was no need to. For the next 4 days I would go in for blood draws and ultrasounds. The ultrasounds showed no pregnancy, my HCG levels continued to go up. On August 8, 2014, I was scheduled to get a more detailed ultrasound with a high risk doctor. The same day that I was headed out of town for my daughters baby shower. The ultrasound revealed the gestational sac in the uterus. How is this possible? The high risk doctor said that the pregnancy came from the right overy and that the right coil must be defective. At this moment my roller coaster of emotions begins. The doctor said I would be high risk and that I would see him every two weeks. I have to travel an hour and a half to see this doctor and they cannot answer any of my questions with straight answers because they do not know the answers. My OBGYN said that he will report this if the pregnancy survives, but he has not had a case like mine so he is unsure. I have been told over and over that this is not my fault. That does not fix the situation or the outcome.
I believe that Essure should be held responsible and accountable for what has happened to me and my family, but I need help and directon when it comes to the legalities of this matter. I am now reaching out to Erin Brocovich for help. Please help me Ms. Brocovich…..
I have called over twenty lawyers and have received rejection letters from the three that took interest in my case. I do not want to get discouraged, but it is hard in my current situation. Recently I have had to be put on narcotics to deal with the excruciating pain that the coils are causing as my uterus grows. I am terrified, angry, confused, and some days the emotions are unexplainable. I need to find comfort in something, and me telling my story and asking for help is one of the only ways that I feel like there is hope, but telling my story over and over also makes this my reality.
Thank you for letting me share and any help in a legal direction would be greatly appreciated.