My Story
My name is Valerie and my story is very different! I learned I had uterine fibroids when I was 28 after over 10 years of debilitating symptoms. I underwent an open abdominal myomectomy surgery in February of 2012 to preserve my fertility (so they removed most of the tumors and kept my uterus intact). Unfortunately two years later, I had a fibroid that measured the size of a small watermelon and needed a second open abdominal myomectomy surgery (5/1/14).
As soon as I got the okay from my doctor almost 5 months post op, my husband and I started trying. I did EVERYTHING! BBT, Ovulation tests, checking my CM, DTD mostly just those few days around and on ovulation, even switched up my already crazy clean diet and exercise schedule, plus adding in supplements that were supposed to help. I did it all!
Every month that went by I would convince myself that it worked! Especially those months when I was really late, I thought for sure we'd made a baby. I would always take tests too soon out of pure excitement with the idea of being pregnant, but never saw the + or the two lines.
A year went by and I did a workup with a reproductive endocrinologist. She was a piece of work, but after doing all the testing...she saw no reason why I couldn't get pregnant on my own, so we tried another year. By 2016 I already had more fibroids, but they were small and doctors kept urging us to keep trying, not thinking we needed intervention (we were in our early 30s).
Fast forward to last summer (July 2018). I'm a mess physically and I just had the sinking feeling that the fibroids were just too big. I went to another reproductive endocrinologist in August of 2018 and after lots of testing and another interuterine Ultrasound (I've had more than I can count at this point) it was confirmed that I had 4 very large Fibroids...one of which was completely distorting and blocking my cervix. I was heartbroken. It was time to make a choice...either have a third myomectomy to keep trying (but likely fail due to my uterus being so damaged) or.... hysterectomy.
On July 1st of this year, I'll be having a total hysterectomy (keeping my ovaries). It's taken me 10 months to go through the grieving process and I'm sure I'll still have lots of emotions once the surgery is over, but this was what I had to do for my health! What kind of mother would I be if I was not healthy enough to take care of my child?
We have discussed adoption over the years and it's something that's on our hearts. We will really look into the process once I'm fully healed from my surgery!
I love that you have shared your story and that your are flipping the script on how we talk about our fertility as a whole! We are all so different and our stories are so different BUT we can all come together from our stories and support one another!
XO
Valerie Altman
