QuestionQUESTION: I had a medical abortion on december 2nd,. does everyone bleed for a few days after the abortion,. and if they do is that ovulating?
also, i bleed for a day then almost completely stopped bleading,. then started again for almost another week,. is there any possible way that i had my period that soon after and abortion,.
i have had unprotected sex since the abortion,. and its now been 2 weeks and my pregnancy test is still showing up positive,. its a very fant line,. could i possibly be pregnant again,. or is it just the hormones still leaving my body,. untill eventually make the second line on the pregnancy test completely dissappear?
ANSWER: Hello, Heather,
I would say bleeding after a pill abortion is universal, particularly if it accomplishes what a woman is trying to do. Sometimes it becomes so severe it becomes life-threatening and can even kill a woman. It's one of the reasons these medications are so damaging, and harmful, and should never be used for this purpose. Most likely, your pregnancy test is showing leftover hormones. But if you continue to have sex, you will almost certainly get pregnant again. Protection doesn't work. So don't rely on it. But it would be rare for you to get pregnant within the first two weeks after a pill abortion. It takes time for a woman's hormones to return to normal.
Ovulation and bleeding are not the same thing. Instead, at the time of ovulation, a woman has transparent, slippery mucus that stretches like a raw egg white. Occasionally, a woman will ovulate during her period, but this is also rare. The mucus lasts several days, but on the day of ovulation, it will be about 14 days until her next period starts if she doesn't get pregnant. You might want to learn how to tell when you are fertile; it will give you a much better sense of what your body is doing. You have to chart faithfully, and you can't be using hormones. For more information, go here:
http://www.fertilityuk.org/
If you do start to bleed heavily, get medical attention. This is debilitating, if nothing else. If this does happen, please let me know. In the meantime, see if you can find a health food store and get a bottle of cayenne capsules. In the event of heavy bleeding, you can use them.
Please take care of yourself. If you are not married, I recommend you abstain from sex, but regardless, abstain on days you are fertile. Make sure that you won't have to face this decision again. Feel free to keep in touch.
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QUESTION: Its been 2 weeks and 2 days since i had my abortion,. i still have not started my period,. is this normal? and when i take a pregnancy test it still shows up positive,.i have a follow up appointment monday,.
im getting ready to leave for the army in 10 days, and i need a negative pregnancy test,. is there any way i can get the hormones out of my body faster?
AnswerHi, Heather,
I'd have to say that since getting an abortion isn't normal, neither is the confusion your body is experiencing over your hormones. Apparently you had a normal pregnancy prior to the abortion. What happened next was abrupt and not within normal patterns at all. I suppose a lot of women think of it as being like a miscarriage. It's not. In a miscarriage, the hormone levels have been dropping for some time, which is why after a miscarriage, a woman's body reacts very differently, because the hormone levels have already dropped. It is, however, very, very common for a woman to have elevated pregnancy hormone levels for awhile after an abortion, and I am not aware of a safe way to tamper with your hormones (not to obtain an abortion in the first place, and not to rush the body in returning to equilibrium). It will undoubtedly just invite more trouble to try. Your body needs time to recover. It may not even be wise to report for duty (especially something like basic training) so soon after an abortion, because you could do your body serious injury, and perhaps end your career in the Army before it even begins. You could stretch or rupture something.
I recommend that you do NOT go to the person who provided the abortion. This person will have a vested interest in making sure that you conclude that the abortion didn't harm you, and won't be objective. You need to go to a doctor who is ethical and you can trust. Providing the means to cause an abortion is unethical to begin with. I have learned from personal experience that when a doctor is willing to ignore medical ethics, their clinical judgment can't be trusted, either. You will need to ask a doctor whether or not there is any danger in reporting for duty. If he thinks it would be unsafe, you may be able to get some kind of medical leave, and report later. But it would seem to me this would be the best bet. Such things do happen, and the Army would have experience dealing with a temporary medical disability. If you have found a good doctor, then he can provide an opinion on whether it will be harmful, and if so, he can provide the minimum necessary to make it possible to report later.
Finding a doctor you can trust may or may not be easy for you, but if you run into difficulty, I recommend you find an organization that helps pregnant women. They have medical personnel who have dealt with issues similar to yours, who can give you competent advice. You can find such an organization by going here:
http://www.pregnancycenters.org/
Please take care of yourself and don't take any chances with your body. And of course, it goes without saying that you won't want to have to face this again in the future, so I want to recall to mind the recommendations I made in that regard. Again, feel free to write any time, and let me know how you are doing.
