First Period And Hysteroscopy After Septum Surgery

After finishing the estrogen and progesterone last month, I was to contact my RE when my period(AF: aunt flow) started so I could get a follow-up hysteroscopy scheduled. My period showed up in a timely manner and I got the hysteroscopy scheduled on 10/18/13 (CD12).

My first AF after the septum surgery was longer and a lot heavier than my normal pre-surgery periods. This was to be expected since the purpose of the estrogen was to build my uterine lining to flood the surgical site to help prevent & minimize scarring.  On my chart below, it shows AF was mostly moderate to heavy flow and lasted 8 days. My normal periods are 4-5 days and mostly light to moderate flow.

On 10/18/13 I had my follow up hysteroscopy. This was an office-hysteroscopy, meaning no surgery prep and if anything leftover, scarring, whatever else to be found would be found, nothing would be done about it at this time. Thankfully, everything looked great on the hysteroscopy and both fallopian tube entrances (Ostia) could be visualized. No scarring was seen and the surgical site looked great. Things looked so good RE gave me clearance to try to conceive this cycle. The original instructions said to wait 8 weeks before getting pregnant & I was only at 6 weeks post surgery. I let RE know that if ovulation occurred in it's typical pattern I would only be about 7 weeks out from surgery. He still decided this was fine but mentioned he didn't think I would get pregnant this cycle due to all of the hormones I had taken during my surgery cycle.

After the hysteroscopy, everything was great until a few hours later. I started having intense cramping, this happened to me the last time I had this procedure also so I wasn't really surprised. What did surprise me was I had some continued cramping the next couple of days after. Looking at my chart below you'll see (on a scale of 1-5) I gave cramping a 5 the day of my hysteroscopy, a 3 the day after and a 1 two days after. This is where things get a little crazy & my mind (also crazy) takes over and gets the best of me.

I had egg-white cervical mucus (EWCM) the day after my hysteroscopy CD13. This is usually a great sign of being fertile. At first I attributed the EWCM to the hysteroscopy and assumed it was just cm that had been stirred up since my cervix & uterus had been messed with the day before. My thoughts started taking over when the cramping continued -- as I didn't recall having any extended cramping after my first hysteroscopy. I had 3 different brands waaaayyy expired OPK's so I tried them out in the morning on CD14. The first one was ALMOST positive, the second one was a definite negative, and the digital was a definite negative. After work that evening I bought new opk's and tested them to which both brands were negative. I continued to do daily OPK's and each day the test line got lighter until it was almost nonexistent. I wasn't really sure if I was going to have a wacky cycle and ovulate really late or if I wasn't going to ovulate. Since I wasn't temping I had no idea WTF was going on.

To my surprise, my period showed up on Halloween. The only sign of AF showing was crying. I cry about everything for a week before AF shows. So when AF actually did show up I was pleasantly surprised. What's strange about this though is that my cycles are typically 30-35days long, so 24days is UNHEARD of for me. If I really did ovulate, it would've most likely been on cd12-cd14 which is also UNHEARD of for me --- I typically ovulate on CD17-CD22 (see my chart below the line that says stats with the green boxes, those are my predicted ovulation days based on my normal ovulation pattern).



Post Surgery: Final Days

When I left off in my last post I was 7days post surgery and on CD13 on 9/11/13.  The chart below is my completed chart from my surgery cycle and shows everything that went on. I'll explain it briefly after the following highlights:

• My CM (cervical mucus) continued to be pretty amazing. Just a reminder that the ****'s noted represent light bleeding/spotting along with my CM. Anywhere you see the asterisks I needed a pad--it was that heavy. 

• On CD22 9/22/13 the balloon catheter (aka Ballooterus) was removed & I started progesterone.

• There are a lot of days with cramps marked on them. If the cramps aren't noted with a numerical value, it was really just a dull ache that I noticed off and on throughout the day. Only cramps with numerical values were when I needed a pain reliever (like ibuprofen).

 

The last 4 days before ballooterus was removed I had some intense cramping off and on, so I was extremely ready for the removal. Two days before the removal I was pretty uncomfortable and was having a weird sensation, so I started "feeling" around--mainly just touching my labia, when I felt something hard & plastic coming out of my vagina. I made DH take a peek & a picture, all he could see was a tiny little white plastic tip of some sort. I did some pelvic thrusts and started feeling a little more comfortable & could no longer feel the plastic catheter tip. The balloon catheter removal was 2 weeks after the surgery. The removal itself was really quick and there was brief pain during the removal. I had taken 800mg ibuprofen before the removal and was glad that I did. After the removal I went to work and my day was normal, no unusual cramping.

After ballooterus was removed I started progesterone(Provera) along with my estrogen(Premarin). When I was on the estrogen only I did have quite a few days of hot flashes. When I started the progesterone I felt fine at first, but as time went on I became pretty crazy--hormonal/emotional. As you can see above my mood was all over the place. I was bad enough that I knew I was crazy. I had been advised that Provera can cause fatigue & I concur with that - as I had quite a few days of feeling tired while I was on it.

My period returned 4 days after finishing the estrogen & progesterone. I called my RE's office and scheduled my follow-up hysteroscopy.

Post Surgery Experience Continued

9/8 /13- 9/13/13

Not much to really report in these days. All has been going pretty well. I finally went back to work and I've been pleasantly surprised as I really thought the balloon-catheter was going to be extremely uncomfortable. 

I have had some extreme cervical mucus (CM) and every once in a while I get the sensation of something being there. So see my note at the bottom of the page about this in more detail.

9/8/13 3Days After Surgery: I felt pretty good all day. My bm's have gone back to "my normal." We went to my parent's house for a BBQ. By the time we left I was having a little bit of cramping, so when I got home I took ibuprofen for pain relief. I still had some discomfort when I went to bed so I took Demerol.

9/9/13 4Days After Surgery: My final day off from work. I cleaned the house and got everything in order for the week. Overall feeling extremely well. I took one dose of ibuprofen in the afternoon - no pain/cramping but I figured it couldn't hurt and could help with the inflammation going on in my uterus.

9/10/13 5Days After Surgery: I went back to work at 2:30PM for a half-day. I was nervous because I'm up walking around on my feet all day long at work. Everything went smooth.

9/11/13 6Days After Surgery: This morning was my last dose of doxycycline (antibiotic), and I was glad to be done with it as doxy upsets my stomach. I worked all day today. Had some slight cramping in the late afternoon so I took ibuprofen. When I got home from work my belly was upset. I tried to go to bed but I was up off and on for 2 hours with some episodes of diarrhea. I was finally able to go to sleep and slept through the night.

9/12/13 7Days After Surgery: When I woke up my belly was still upset, some more loose-stools, some minor cramping this morning. Even with the cramps, I felt better than I did the night before. Again, working all day. My belly pain and cramping went away by mid-morning. All was well while at work. When I was driving home from work I started to get emotional/teary-eyed and overall just in a bad mood - no known reason.

9/13/13 8Days After Surgery: When I woke up today I was still emotional and very teary-eyed on my drive to work. Again at work all day and everything was good at work. Overall mood-wise I was back to myself by the end of the day. When I got home, I had cramping at bedtime. I couldn't find a comfortable position so I ended up taking some Demerol. This is the first time I've had anything stronger than ibuprofen in 4 days.


Other:
Most of the time I don't notice the balloon-catheter at all. There are some times when I notice it. It's hard to describe the feeling as it's not painful and not really uncomfortable, just there. It's kind of like feeling something is stuck at the back of the vagina (obviously right? ha) or like pressure at the urethra (pee hole), feeling like I need to pee - although I don't. It's really more of a nuisance. Typically I can do some pelvic thrusting or pelvic lifts to get this "kink" worked out. Sometimes if I go pee or even if I don't pee but wipe, the feeling dissipates.

Cervical Mucus
The first couple of days after surgery I noticed my pads and when I wiped the tp would be pretty moist/wet. I'm fairly certain that this really was the fluid they used during the surgery draining, especially since I was having the mini-queef feeling when I would pee.  However this only lasted a couple of days. After that stopped, I started to notice that my pads and tp were still moist but looked more like a creamy/lotion type of fluid that lasted for 3 days (9/7 - 9/9). I realized this was actually CM on 9/10/13 as I had EWCM (egg-white cervical mucus). My CM has been on overdrive and I attribute this to the Premarin (estrogen) that I've been taking. See my chart pic below to see my CM notes. I also have ****'s under menses starting the day of my surgery @ CD7. The ****'s represent bleeding. It has not been anything more than what I consider Light flow.

Post Surgery Experience

9/5 /13- 9/7/13
A balloon catheter was placed in my uterus during the surgery and will be removed in two weeks. I was prescribed Demerol, Toradol and Ibuprofen for pain. Toradol and Ibuprofen aren't supposed to be taken together, so when I switch to Ibuprofen I have to wean myself off of Toradol. I also am taking Doxycycline (antibiotic) twice a day and Premarin (estrogen) daily for 1month.

9/5/13 Surgery Day:
I had a little bit of pressure in my vag/uterine area that I can only describe as a pressure similar to when you're a kid riding a bicycle and you hit your vag on the top bar of the bike. It's like that type of throbbing/pulsating once the initial shock wears off. I don't know if this pressure was pain or just the area really kind of throbbing or if it was the cervical block wearing off. It only lasted the day of the surgery and wasn't really painful at all. Just noticeable. I did however continue to take Demerol every 4-6hours.

Peeing was strange at first. Everything was fine until the end of the pee. Then it was like some excess air/fluid being released. I describe this as a mini-queef-like experience. This happened every time I peed.

I didn't sleep very well the night of my surgery. All of the pain meds caused me to feel nauseous (despite taking nausea meds), so I woke up and dry heaved a bit. I did have some cramping, nothing too bad. Honestly, I think the cramping might have been enhanced by my bowels. I'm a normal two-a-dayer and the anesthesia + narcs can cause some slowing of the bowels and constipation, so I know I was probably a little "backed up" for me.

9/6/13 1Day After Surgery:
After dry heaving (above) I went back to sleep for a bit. I woke up again around 4:30AM from cramps (which I was laying on my stomach when I woke up) so I got up and took some more Demerol. I went back to sleep and woke up around 9AM. I felt fine most of the morning, but started to notice a little pressure so I took some Toradol around 12:30PM. I fell asleep and woke back up in the middle of the afternoon (I think I was just tired from not sleeping well during the night). I felt great the rest of the day. Peeing I still had that same mini-queef experience I describe above. At one point I described it to DH as feeling like having "trapped air" in there, to which I ended up laughing hysterically at because I do, in fact, have trapped air up there :D !!! I ended up taking Demerol before bedtime and slept all through the night. Still no BM today, so I'm still attributing some of the cramping to my bowels.

9/7/13 2Days After Surgery:
I woke up at 8AM and finally a bm! I was nervous at first about this, so I tried my best not to "push". I felt so great today that I didn't even take any pain meds. Around noon I did take some more Toradol as I was feeling a little bit of pressure and I wanted to see if the Toradol was what made me sleepy yesterday or not. No afternoon nap so I'm saying Toradol does not cause drowsiness. Peeing is better today, no more of that mini-queef feeling. I will say that most of the day I have been able to tell that something is off down there. It's like a dull feeling...kind of like the dull pressure a uti causes you to feel. Kind of like you have to pee, but you don't really have to pee.  No cramping today so far and again another bm at 3PM.