Retained placenta 9 weeks PP.

[barefootdoula]

Good evening everyone, 

Today was quite the eventful day. I'm 9 weeks postpartum (and still bleeding) and woke up this morning with horrible pelvic pain so I headed on over to my doctors office as I suspected a uterine infection due to loss of retained membranes two weeks prior. I had an ultrasound set up for next Wednesday that was scheduled after the retained membranes had passed, but they felt that was too long to wait and sent me in for an urgent one this morning.The radiologist informed me before I even left that I had approximately a 2cm mass of retained placenta left in my uterus, and that I needed to go to my doctor's immediately. I went to my doctor's office, they handed me the radiologist's report and requested I head over to the ER. At the ER I saw an ER doctor, and then an OB who offered me two choices: D&C or Cytotec. I'm terrified of surgery, so even though I know Cytotec is a horrific drug, I opted for that instead. Now that I'm home I've realized that I am not comfortable with taking it, and I'd almost prefer the surgery over the potential side effects it could cause. Due to turning down the surgery, I now have to wait until Tuesday morning to request one, so I was wondering if there was any herbal abortants I could take in the meantime, and whether or not anything would be safe while nursing.

Thank you!

[~~Sarah~~]

What side effects are you worried about with Cytotec on a postpartum uterus?

[PAgreenmama]

i would just do the D&C.  i had a horrific experience last year that i won't go into but i was terrified of surgery so we tried cytotec and it didn't work.  i ended up hemorrhaging and ended up with the D&C anyway yet over 3 months later (!!!!)!  we discovered that i had retained placenta and ended up with another D&C and a round of serious antibiotics to ensure that no infection had settled in.  i was lucky that i didn't have a serious infection after so many months but i have to wonder if i would have just let them do the D&C before i hemorrhaged if it would have turned out better the first time.  and at the time i had never heard of cytotec so i assumed it was a safe alternative.  i'm a little horrified about it now.  

i was absolutely terrified of general anesthesia but i can tell you now that it's a pretty easy procedure and if i had to do the whole thing over again, i'd just do it.  

so sorry you have to go through this and good luck with whatever you decide