How has endometriosis affected your journey with fertility?

Yup endo screwed up my fertility. Ended up suffocating one ovary and then blocked my other tube.....such as mess. Didn’t even know I had it till my husband and I started trying to have kids that’s when it came on full force. It has been quite nasty for me. However, my two surgeries With endo at Mayo with Dr. Khan have been the most successful and the easiest to recover from! I have had a third surgery prior to the two at Mayo and that one involved the loss of my one ovary because the cyst had grown to the size of a 2 liter bottle of pop. Needless to say, i have a very strong distaste for endo. 😉

I am so sorry to hear how much it has affected your life! It is a nasty disease for sure!! I also had surgery with Dr. Kahn. He was the third doctor I had and the most recent. He does absolutely wonderful work not only during surgery but all of my interactions with him have been so positive! If you do not mind me asking, did you have to proceed to IVF or any other kind of fertility treatments after dealing with endo?

After my very first surgery with endo, (lost an ovary) we got to try the normal way (tee hee) and then ended up getting pregnant and had a beautiful baby girl. Sadly she passed 20hours after life, cause is unknown as I had a very normal pregnancy. She was technically term. Then we tried again and got pregnant again (obviously a chunk of time passed in there) and had a boy who was a premie by 2 days. He’s now 4 and driving me crazy. 🙂 (as he should) and then when we were thinking about a sibling for him is when I had another round of endo show up and that caused my tube to be blocked. So our only way to get pregnant was the scenic route AKA IVF. And Amidst going through that I had yet another endo surgery because a small cyst grew yet again....however, once we took care of that (3rd surgery but 2nd surgery with Dr. Khan) ta-da it took and now I have my baby boy who’s turning one on Sunday!

So, the cliff notes version: nothing else just straight to IVF

By the way, personal shout out to Dr Khan! Amazing doc! My preferred for endo treatment! And so fun to chat with! We developed a good bond and have shared many a funny story. If ever you find yourself needing help with endo, he’s the man to see.

First off, I am so so sorry to hear about your first babe. I cannot even begin to imagine what that must have been like for you! And yes, those little boys will drive you crazy but are so so fun!! I completely agree with you about Dr. Kahn... he is one of a kind!! It sounds like you are one busy mamma but have you heard about the Endometriosis March up in the Twin Cities this month? I have really found my voice for advocacy since starting my appointments with Dr. Kahn last year and am thrilled to be participating for the first time at this years march!

I also am down one ovary! I had my first endo surgery when I was 19 but there was too much endo to remove without concern of hurting my reproductive system so instead I was put on Lupron which I was on and off of for years. I had my second endo surgery in 2016 where they removed my left ovary. Endo had spread onto some of my nerves as well so not only was I suffering from the endo pain itself but starting to feel incredibly comfortable due to the spreading onto the nerves. My most recent endo surgery was the one with Dr. Kahn. This surgery endo was removed as well as my appendix which endo had started to “invade”. Due to the number of surgeries I had it was decided to try IUI’s and when we had 4 failed IUI’s we moved to IVF. My egg count had gone down significantly, especially for my age (31) so we agreed with Dr. Kahn and began IVF. We are now expecting our first, a little boy, in July!

I have not heard of that. Sounds cool!

The March I had not heard of. Sorry. I should be more specific.

And congrats to you on expecting in July!