Fibroids and Fertility
Can You Still Get Pregnant?
You have just learned you have fibroids. You are shocked and scared at the same time. You may have sat there in the doctor’s office thinking but I was hoping to start a family. What does this all mean? Next thing you know, you’re on Google trying to find out if you still can get pregnant with fibroids. With one hand resting on your stomach, you look down in despair. You thought you would be growing a baby. Instead, you are growing fibroids.
As you leave the doctor’s surgery, you are still in disbelief - wondering if pregnancy is even possible now.
Sister, I want to let you know something and I want to make sure you hear it before I say anything else: for most women with fibroids, the answer is yes. Yes, you can get pregnant. Yes ok, you’ve been diagnosed with fibroids but just because you have been handed that diagnosis does not mean the door is closed. It’s not. So before we go any further - take a deep breath.
Done that? Great, then let’s continue.
Now I am going to share the truth with you because you deserve to know all of it, warts and all.
The fear no one sat with you in
When your fibroids were found, the first thing you might have heard is the term ‘fibroids’ and then the medical expert just kept talking, perhaps mentioning the size of a few in passing. What I am saying is, that s/he might have been pretty ‘meh’ about it, while your brain froze a few sentences back in the place where you had already started grieving for the child you had not even tried for yet.
I am not going to downplay this at all. That grief is real so don’t let anyone rush you past it. But it is also a good idea not to ruminate over it either, and preferably not a day longer than you have to. Because in most cases you are grieving for something you have not even lost.
Not every fibroid affects your fertility
This is something I need to get very clear on because this is where lots of mistakes are made: fibroids are not one thing. Where your fibroid sits (more about this soon!) matters far more than the fact that it exists at all, and it matters far more than how big it is. Two women can have the same diagnosis and on paper, it looks exactly the same, however their stories will be completely different.
The fibroids that tend to interfere are the ones growing inside the cavity of the womb, into the very room a pregnancy needs to settle into. They can get in the way of an embryo implanting, or hold up the blood supply that a new pregnancy is depending on. But the good news is that many fibroids sit in the outer wall, or bulge outward away from that space, and simply mind their own business while a baby grows right beside them.
So before you decide your body is working against you, it’s worth understanding which type of fibroid(s) you actually have. That one piece of knowledge has pulled more women back from despair than almost anything else.