This Photo of a Baby Holding His Mother’s Failed IUD Is Going Viral Because It’s Totally Nuts
Lucy Heillein did not think she could possibly be pregnant, because she had an IUD, and those are an extremely reliable type of birth control. Then, in December, doctors informed her that she was actually 18 weeks pregnant by that point, and the Mirena IUD was nowhere to be found. They said the IUD must have fallen out, but when they delivered the healthy, 9-pound baby boy last week by C-section, they found the IUD in Heillein’s abdomen. It was such a wild story they took a photo of the baby holding the IUD like he’d just pulled the sword out of the stone, and the Internet couldn’t get enough of it.
Little Dexter Thomas was not actually born holding the IUD in his hand. That’d be weird and seems like it’d be physically impossible. Heillein told First Coast News that someone had put the IUD in his hand after he was born to take the picture, as a sort of tongue-in-cheek joke.
This was Heillein’s third IUD, and she says the first two were perfect. When she got pregnant with the third IUD in place, however, doctors were surprised because they couldn’t find the thing anywhere. They told Heillein that it had probably fallen out, but she thought she’d probably have noticed if an IUD had come out of her at some point, so she was pretty sure it was still in there. Dexter Thomas was delivered by C-section, and they found the IUD behind the placenta, not doing its job but fortunately not doing much of anything else, either.
In the rare cases when someone becomes pregnant with an IUD, infection, miscarriage, and ectopic pregnancy are risks, according to the company. But Heillein’s pregnancy appears to have progressed completely normally, and she says that while Dexter was not planned for, she’s very glad to have him.
Heillein had gotten the IUD because she had her husband already had children and had decided that they were finished adding to their family.
When they found out that one more had sneaked in after the closing bell, they were surprised, but happy.
Heillein put the photo of Dexter holding his IUD on Facebook, and people were loving it. Of course, it quickly turned into an urban legend about the baby who was born holding his mom’s failed IUD. That’s not actually what happened at all, but it’s still a pretty wild story.
(Image: Facebook / Lucy Hellein)
