Endometriosis from age 12, diagnosed at 23

I started displaying signs and symptoms from my first period at the age of 12. My periods went for 21 days with a 7-day break (so in reverse to the normal person). My mum thought that maybe my hormones were freaking out and so we left it for the first cycle to see if my next was the same, which of course it was. This is when we went to the general practitioner, who didn’t do any investigating but put me on the pill. 

Fast forward 11 years, and I am working as a gynecologist’s receptionist. A year into working with him, I watched the movie Safe Haven and fell in love with the actress Julianne Hough and started following her on Instagram. I came across a post of her in a surgery bed and she explained that she has endometriosis and needs frequent surgeries. I had no idea what that was and so did a bit of googling. 

The more I read, the more I thought it sounded like me, and so I approached my boss. I had a lot of bowel symptoms so he recommended I take medication for IBS, saying if it helped that was the answer and if not, I would need surgery. I took it for a few weeks and when I wasn’t on my period it gave me so much relief, however when I was on my period it did nothing, so I was booked in the following month for surgery. 

Meanwhile a month earlier I had started a relationship with my now husband and I thought being diagnosed with endo would be too much on a new relationship. I was diagnosed with Stage 4 endometriosis and it was good to have answers but it did worry me for what the future would hold. Knowing my boyfriend’s last partner had endo, I was worried he would want out. When I asked him, he simply laughed and said ‘why would I let something like that affect our relationship’, which definitely eased my mind. 

Four months down the track, my pain was back and I went in for surgery only nine months after the first surgery, after which I was told I had 9 months to get pregnant or I was never going to be a mum. This crushed me, and my partner persuaded me to get a second opinion where we were told that IVF would give us two years to try to conceive. We did the first cycle in June 2020 and only got two embryos; our second cycle was in August and we got 17 embryos. We got married in June 2021 and are eagerly waiting for my surgery which was delayed due to health insurance and a health fright. Once complete we can begin transferal of embryos.