I remember building this blog to help other women and I guess have since stopped blogging. I felt as if I had reached my personal goal of having a child, therefore, women would look at this in…spite? My fear of jealousy from those who had been in my shoes took me away from this blog. However, I have realized that I’m still on this journey and I've been called to be real and raw. So here I am. I'm back...
Although I have the most beautiful little boy in the entire world, the truth is, I still struggle. I struggle with not biologically being able to carry a child. I don’t struggle near as much as I did in the past, but here we are. M is 2 now and we are wanting him to have a little brother or sister.
So, let’s back up a bit and jump into this thing feet first…
When I was on active duty in the Army, I tore my labrum on my left hip and had surgery in 2016 to repair it. After the surgery was performed, I was told I would probably tear it again.
In 2018 the doctor did an MRI on my hip to check for tears, as I was experiencing some pain and figured I had just torn it again. The MRI results came in and I had a 2cm cyst on/near my left ovary. After a lot of back and forth on whether the cyst was dangerous or not and a ton of lab work later, I asked to be referred elsewhere. The next doctor took one look and said that the cyst needed to be removed.
October 2018, I had the surgery to remove the cyst. I had been told it was 2cm, however, it was about twice the size they had originally anticipated. I had also lost a lot of blood and was having a really hard time coming off anesthesia. I remember, vaguely, waking up to a sternum rub. I had apparently passed out in the middle of a sentence. The entire thing was rough. At my follow up appointment, I was told that I “possibly had PCOS”, and I have endometriosis. She told me my ovaries were 3 times the size of normal ovaries and wanted to monitor me.
Fast forward…
January/February 2020…
I started seeing a new OB/GYN. He is absolutely incredible, and I mean that from the depths of my sole. I wish I could have been seeing him for the entire eleven years that I have been doing this. We started doing the work up from square one and he started me on femara for ovulation purposes and sent me with instructions for timed intercourse. He did confirm that I have PCOS from lab work and prescribed me metformin along with progesterone to help with my endometriosis.
In the meantime, I had another MRI done on my hip due to excruciating pain on that left side…again. I thought for sure I had torn my hip. I had even been doing physical therapy, as recommended. The MRI results came back, and would you take a look- another cyst on that same side (but no tear!).
My OB looked at my MRI results and couldn’t believe it. This thing was 7.6cm long…SEVEN…almost 8. What. He told me he likes to operate at 8-9cm and was suggesting we operate sooner than later. However, our friend COVID-19 had shown up and they were only doing absolute emergent cases only. He ordered ultrasounds. Both external, and intervaginal. Talk about painful. We found that the cyst wasn’t cancerous as far as they could tell. I was told that we would continue to monitor to make sure it wasn’t growing. He thought the cyst may have shown up due to the ovulation medications.
Over the next month or two I started feeling some cramping on that left side, however one night I had cramps that would come and go and last 15-30 seconds at a time that would completely take my breath away. I thought it was maybe trying to burst, but figured it was time to tell my doctor. He told me to give it 24 hours and see how I felt. That night, the same thing happened, except even more pain. I came into work and called my doctor- he instructed me to not eat or drink anything, he was taking me to surgery that same day. He was worried about my ovary twisting and cutting off blood supply, which, in turn is very dangerous.
He took me to surgery, and it lasted longer than anticipated. With COVID19 measures in place, my husband wasn’t allowed to come back with me, nor was he able to be there when I woke up. I couldn’t imagine how freaked out he was, or how my family was feeling for that matter. Dr. M even left the hospital and went to my husband’s truck in the parking lot to give him the update on my condition.
Before the surgery he had told us that he would call my husband if he thought he had to remove anything, however, he had to remove my fallopian tube- without question. My left fallopian tube was the mass that was indicated on my MRI along with 3 other cysts. I had one on my ovary, one on my fallopian tube, and one in my fallopian tube. The tube was extremely matted, and it was attaching itself to my pelvic wall and my large intestine. It was beginning to twist, therefore causing me pain and starting to cut off blood flow. Also, it was impinging on my sciatic nerve, which would explain the numbness. My ovary was also engulfed by my tube, but he was able to save it. He ran the blue dye through my tubes during the surgery to check function, and the left one wouldn’t even drip out. My right one was fine. The bad tube looked like a mangled potato that had bumps all over it. The bumps were caused by my endometriosis with the blood spilling out of my tubes from menstruation. It didn’t even look like a tube. It was gnarly (I saw pictures). He told me that it had been like that for years. I bet you could imagine how upset I was, that 2 years ago, those folks didn’t say a word or blink an eye. They didn’t even run dye through my tubes, knowing I was trying to conceive. Furthermore, Dr. M told me that I needed to pursue genetic testing because my “insides were stretchy”. Someone who has this certain genetic condition can have trouble embedding a fertilized egg, therefore will struggle with infertility. If all of that wasn’t enough…I also have a very soft uterus. A uterus is a muscle; therefore, it should be firm and feel more like a chin...mine feels like the tip of your nose. My uterus is shaped differently with a slight indent, causing more surface area to bleed from with my endometriosis as well as a new diagnosis of adenomyosis. The things that will help with all of that is a hysterectomy, but that’s not an option right now. The list of stuff that is against me is way longer than the list that I have in my favor.
My “unexplained infertility” has been debunked.
Deep breath. That’s a lot.
That’s a lot of answers to questions I’ve had for a very long time. That’s a lot of answers I didn’t want to hear. I feel broken. I feel like a failure in my own world. I only want a fix. I developed this way; I don’t get to have a fix. We can try, but there’s no guarantee. He did say that without that crazy fallopian tube in there, my odds increased for conception. There’s hope, but it didn’t and still doesn’t keep me from breaking down and crying. I’ve lost something of mine that I thought was going to help make a baby. I know that I’m better without it, but it doesn’t hurt any less. With every item that comes up that’s “not in my favor” makes me cringe and causes me to burry my head in the sand even further.
So…moving forward.
Ovulation drugs (because, well-PCOS) and timed intercourse for now. Possibly IVF, possibly another adoption.
Only time will tell…
~Jess
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