Around one in 10 women in Ireland are living with endometriosis. This painful disorder occurs when tissue that normally lines the inside of the uterus starts growing outside of it.
To increase awareness, we spoke to Anne* from Cork, who is an endometriosis sufferer, on her condition. She outlines what she needed to do to conceive and how she now finally has a beautiful baby girl through IVF.
“It was only when I ended up in A&E in my twenties that I was diagnosed with endometriosis. My periods were always excruciating but as my mother had suffered from pain too, I just thought it ran in the family. My friends would say they had cramps, but I honestly felt like I was dying, often fainting and vomiting from the pain.
It affected me to such an extent that I had to work my life around my period. Luckily, I did the rotas at work, so I would always make sure I was rostered off for the start of my cycle, when it was at its worst.
One day in particular, I met a friend who said ‘you don’t look well.’ It was day 3 or 4 of my cycle so I was over the worst of it but something still did not feel right. I went home with pains in my stomach which got progressively worse. Eventually, I collapsed and my Dad took me to A&E.
I stayed overnight, they did a few tests and I was given a letter instructing me to see a gynaecologist. I remember seeing the word ‘endometriosis’ on it. This is how I first met Dr John Waterstone. As well as being an obstetrician/gynaecologist, Dr Waterstone is also medical director of leading fertility specialists Waterstone Clinic and would eventually assist me in trying to get pregnant. At our first meeting, I explained to him how I ended up in hospital, he did a few scans and I knew straight away by his face that it wasn’t good. Dr Waterstone explained that the endometriosis had done a lot of damage and he queried if I had plans for a future family. At this point, the endometriosis was so bad, it had already impacted my fertility.
This was around my 30th birthday and while I knew I always wanted a child, it wasn’t something I was thinking about at the time. My partner and I knew we needed to start straight away. Firstly, Dr Waterstone recommended to try naturally for a certain amount of time to get pregnant, before looking at further options. After a couple of months, I found out I was pregnant but sadly lost the baby very early.
I returned to Dr Waterstone who scanned me again. He told me the cysts had to be removed because they were getting bigger and he felt it would be best to get rid of some of the damage from the endometriosis. I had the operation, started trying again but nothing happened.
We tried two unsuccessful cycles of IUI and moved straight onto IVF. Luckily we produced four heathy embryos and, after transferring one of them, I was extremely blessed to get pregnant on the first go.
I now have a little girl who is 15 months old. My symptoms did subside for a few months but they are beginning to get bad again and the pain is something I will have to live with. I am very lucky though as I still have some frozen embryos in storage for when I do want to try again.
Hindsight is a great thing and if I knew then what I know now, I would have sought assistance earlier and not suffered silently for so long. Every time I got my period, more damage was being done. I believe that endometriosis is something that every female should know about, and we should all be encouraged to seek help if we feel that something isn’t right.”
If you are experiencing any of the above symptoms or are having problems conceiving, contact Waterstone Clinic directly at 0818 333310 to talk through your options or visit www.waterstoneclinic.ie. Waterstone Clinic are leading fertility specialists with clinics nationwide in Cork, Dublin, Limerick and Waterford.
