Ever had a picture taken of your insides?

If so, please comment and let me know about your experience. I’m heading into hospital on the 15th of this month and I’m dreading it. Firstly I can’t stand hospitals – they’re OK to visit I guess, but I’ve never fancied being a patient myself. The last time I had an operation I was 9 and that was under local anaesthetic to remove a mole. That brings me to my ‘secondly’ which is I’m going to be having a general anaesthetic – something I’ve never had before.

As you all probably know, as I’ve alluded to this in the past, Colin and I have been at it like rabbits for several years [nearly 4 to be precise] in the hope of conceiving, with a few breaks here and there to allow for bouts of deep depression whenever I got the news that yet another one of my friends had successfully conceived or given birth, but still no pitter patter of tiny feet has come our way – not for want of trying.

Oh what a lovely big empty house we have! At this rate we’ll be growing old with only each other for company.

If anyone is embarking on fertility investigations – or should I say infertility – don’t do what we did and go to Edinburgh as it’s convenient – go to Dundee! We decided to get referred to Edinburgh and have regretted it ever since. Had the most awful experience with the consultants there, waiting months and months and months and months and months [9 each time, which is surely someone’s idea of irony] for each test or follow up appointment. It took 9 months to get the initial appointment, 9 months to book an HSG, 9 months to get a follow up appointment to find out the results – and all the time we got older and less fertile as a result. We’re quite bitter about it all.

The verdict – unexplained infertility. Apparently there is nothing wrong with either of us and they have no answers to our questions and are the most unhelpful bunch of medics I’ve ever met – unsympathetic as well. I won’t go into the details of my last appointment which made me cry for over a week – you can surely get the picture.

Anyway let me get back to the point of this post. I met one of my friends for lunch earlier this year and she was in the stage of recovering from having an ovarian cyst removed. She told me that when they were ‘in there’ investigating they found that she also had endometriosis. I enquired further and alarm bells started ringing in my head as I quickly realised that I pretty much have all the symptoms and have suffered with this all my life. I’d never really considered endometriosis as I always thought it had something to do with irregular and heavy periods – I’m pretty regular and have a normal period every time – the only abnormal thing about it is the pain – incredible pain – excruciating pain. It’s something I’ve put up with all my life – I thought it was normal – OK sometimes I thought it was a bit abnormal, but as GPs have never really taken period pain seriously and just prescribe the pill, there has never been anything I could do about it but pop a few painkillers each month, cuddle a hot water bottle and stay in bed for a few days. It’s just part of my routine and something I’ve got used to.

I didn’t know about endometriosis and it’s affects on fertility – my friend told me to go straight to the GP to get checked out. I did just that, but when I phoned up to make an appointment I found that my GP was off on maternity leave – argh – rub it in my face why don’t you – oh how bitter I am!

So I found myself another GP and went to see her instead. She looked through my notes and was quite alarmed that not one consultant at the fertility clinic had picked up on what I’d told them about my monthly pains and she asked me lots of questions and decided to refer me to the gyno clinic in Kirkcaldy, pronto, to get checked out for endometriosis. I was amazed at how quickly I got an appointment – is this progress at last?

I went through for my appointment and got thoroughly prodded and pocked inside and out and then given the options. I decided I wanted to be investigated further and so asked to be booked in for a laparoscopy and amazingly got my hospital appointment within a month. So, I’m now waiting for the day and even though I know what to expect on the day as both my GP and my Gynaecologist have explained the procedure, I can’t help over thinking about the whole thing. I’m dreading going under general anaesthetic. I’m also dreading the results – half of me is really excited and hopeful as maybe at last we’ll be given a definite reason for our infertility and a possible solution, as by removing endometriosis we might be given a chance to conceive. The other half of me is filled with doom and gloom – what if the outcome is that my endometriosis is so advanced that there is nothing they can do about it? What if they find something else wrong with me? What if something goes wrong and… I dread to think!

So I’m trying to occupy my brain with happy thoughts and work and anything but the operation, but it’s hard to maintain. I would love to hear your stories, if you have any and would like to share. Feel free to comment below, send me a message on Facebook, or get in touch via this website.