As celebrities like lenadunham and alexa_chung go public about their battle with endometriosis, journalist Emma Barnett reflects on her own struggles with the frequently misunderstood condition – and its complicated relationship with fertility.
People know deep down when something isn’t right with their health. They just do. I was newly 30 when my husband and I decided to start trying for a baby, and I was nervous. Although I didn’t vocalise it at the time, I realised I’d been dreading this moment for as long as I could remember. Something in my body felt wrong, broken – despite doctor after doctor telling me otherwise.
The word “endometriosis” had never been much on my radar, though I vaguely knew it was some kind of condition linked to periods. It was only thanks to a chance breakfast with a dear friend – who happens to be an obstetrician, and one of the few people I confided in about our failure to conceive – that I properly heard the word for the first time.
As fast as I could, I booked an appointment with an excellent doctor for a laparoscopy – a keyhole surgery used to both diagnose and treat the condition. It is, in fact, the only way to know for sure if you have endometriosis. I would be under for either a few minutes or a few hours, depending on what the doctor found and whether there was a need to operate.
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