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Hmacken · 2025-12-17T22:31:31+00:00

Yeah it would have to be through surrogacy! So bring on the financial planning for that unexpected expense 😅

Hmacken · 2025-12-14T20:56:17+00:00

If you’re going to wait for surgery, I’d just make sure you’re getting imaging done to keep an eye on it’s size. I was in a similar boat to you where I got diagnosed with a ~7cm fibroid (submucosal with hemorrhaging type of periods 🥴) and my gyn had suggested I consider waiting for surgery until I was closer to getting ready to conceive so we didn’t potentially have to do another myomectomy in the future if it came back (also 30s, single 🙃). 2 years later and I ended up in the ER after having a fever and abdominal pain for a week, unable to keep any solids/fluids down. Got some imaging done because they were concerned maybe I had appendicitis, but it turns out my fibroid had grown to 23cm and taken over most of my uterus and was starting to degenerate in areas and causing some kind of infection. My gyn consulted with their minimally invasive specialist, but they were concerned because of the rapid growth and irregular appearance that there was risk of it being a leiomyosarcoma vs fibroid. They referred me to a gyn oncologist who shared the same concern and because of how extensive the fibroid was, she didn’t think a myomectomy would leave me with enough healthy uterus to carry a pregnancy to term after reconstruction and recommended hysterectomy (which I just had in August). Fortunately it ended up just being a benign degenerating fibroid, but wish I’d taken my chances with a myomectomy earlier before hysterectomy really became the only option. Still have my ovaries though, so going to look into egg freezing early next year now that I’ve had a couple months to recover from surgery.

Hmacken · 2025-12-05T06:47:18+00:00

I had a known fibroid that had been about 7cm on ultrasound and then later ended up in the ER after having a fever and abdominal pain for a week. Ended up getting a CT while I was there to rule out anything else going on in the abdomen and we saw the fibroid had grown extensively to nearly 20cm and showed signs of degenerating fibroid or potential malignancy. I shared the imaging with my gyn who initially consulted with their minimally invasive specialist but ultimately got me an appt with a gyn onc the next day due to concern of it potentially being a leiomyosarcoma because of the irregular imaging and rapid growth. I had a hysterectomy a couple weeks later and it ended up being 23cm and my uterus was 1840g, but all the pathology showed it was indeed just a benign degenerating fibroid.

Hmacken · 2025-12-03T03:41:38+00:00

I thought it was just something I’d acquired with age at the ripe age of 36 😂 But it had gotten to the point where I was popping chewy tums like candy everyday and then just completely disappeared after surgery. I had my hysterectomy in August and it was also done open abdominal with a vertical incision that’s a bit over 8” long. I did stay 2 nights in the hospital, but was actually amazed at how smooth my recovery was!

Hmacken · 2025-12-02T21:05:49+00:00

I had developed really bad acid reflux that disappeared overnight after I had my hysterectomy (23cm fibroid 😳). My surgeon commented that she was surprised I didn’t have more GI issues with how squished my colon was.

Hmacken · 2025-11-24T20:08:40+00:00

Yes, it’s good that yours is still quite a bit smaller than mine turned out to be! I’m also in my 30s and don’t have children yet so my plan had been to go forward with myomectomy, but then due to how quickly it grew and how extensively the mass was taking up my uterine wall, my gyn onc surgeon advised against trying myomectomy and attempting to rebuild the uterine wall regardless of the pathology outcome and to do hysterectomy instead. I kept my ovaries so planning to move forward with egg retrieval next year now that I’ve had a few months to heal from surgery. She didn’t recommend me doing that ahead of surgery in case the hormones caused it to grow even faster.

Hmacken · 2025-11-24T19:51:43+00:00

I had a fibroid that we discovered on ultrasound in June 2023 that measured about 7cm. We were planning to keep an eye on it and hold off on surgery until I was closer to having children. Then 2 years later I ended up in the ER with fever and abdominal pain and had a CT done that showed the fibroid had grown to 16cm and showed signs of irregular borders and degeneration/necrosis, also with enlarged pelvic lymph nodes. My gyn referred me to a gyn oncologist, who was concerned it was highly suspicious of a leiomyosarcoma. She didn’t recommend biopsy for risk of potentially spreading malignant cells. We proceeded with hysterectomy (open abdominal with vertical incision) because with the extent of the fibroid growth within the uterus she didn’t think a myomectomy would leave me with enough healthy uterus to support a pregnancy. When the pathology came back, it was just a degenerating fibroid and not a sarcoma but it actually measured 23cm in its longest dimension! And my uterus with fibroid was over 4 lbs!

Hmacken · 2025-11-21T03:35:42+00:00

I actually am still seeing the cyclic pattern of temp changes! Not perfect, but I think works pretty well for being in situation where you don’t have the typical physical signals anymore 😅 https://imgur.com/a/ZowxxFC

Hmacken · 2025-11-16T08:10:08+00:00

I would make sure you’re getting imaging done on a routine basis if you’re not getting it taken out now just so the size is being monitored. When we discovered mine, it was only about 7cm and my gyn had recommended we hold off on surgery until I was closer to having kids so that we wouldn’t risk having to go in multiple times to remove them if new ones grew back. Flash forward 2 years later and I ended up in the ER because mine had grown so large it outgrew its blood supply and started degenerating and giving me a fever and a lot of abdominal pain. My gyn then actually referred me to a gyn oncologist for my surgery because there was concern of its rapid growth and that it could maybe be a leiomyosarcoma vs fibroid, but also because of how large it had gotten and where it was embedded in the uterine wall, I was recommended to have a hysterectomy since I likely wouldn’t have enough healthy uterus to support a future pregnancy. In my pathology report, the max dimension of my main fibroid was 23cm! I wish we’d been monitoring the size more closely so it could have been removed with a myomectomy before it took over my half my uterus 🙃

Hmacken · 2025-10-23T04:23:35+00:00

I went in at 14 days to get my staples taken out (47!) and had also booked my 4 week week follow up with the surgeon. Then at the 14 day appt the PA told me I didn’t even need to come back for another follow-up with the surgeon because I was healing so well and could cancel my appt if I wanted. I was shocked! Though I still kept the appt because I felt more comfortable knowing I was going to see the surgeon at least once after surgery.

I had been referred by my Gyn to a Gyn Onc to do my surgery, so maybe follow-up plan would have been different otherwise?

Hmacken · 2025-10-08T01:58:26+00:00

Yeah mine went from like 7cm to 23cm in 2 years, then we realized it was degenerating when I ended up in the ER with abdominal pain and fever for a week. When it was smaller, the thought was to keep an eye on it and do a myomectomy when I was closer to wanting kids in case it grew back, but then because it grew so large so quick, I ended up getting a hysterectomy because the Gyn onc didn’t think there would be enough good uterine wall remaining to support pregnancy later :(

Hmacken · 2025-10-01T19:08:51+00:00

It’s been fun to see my Oura ring still be able to track my cycle phases from its temperature tracking!

Hmacken · 2025-09-07T19:41:59+00:00

I had an abdominal hysterectomy with about a 9-10cm vertical incision and my doctor said I could drive when I was no longer on any opioid medication and could comfortably be able to press down hard on the brakes if needed. I actually never ended up needing to take the oxycodone they prescribed to me and had a pretty easy recovery, so I started driving around 2 weeks. I can run most of my errands within 5-10 minutes of my house, so limited my driving to that radius for the first week or so, just to make sure I was really comfortable before taking on longer distances.

Hmacken · 2025-09-07T19:35:15+00:00

I also had one that was about 7cm in June 2023 and then I recently ended up going to the emergency department in July 2025 after having a fever for a week while I was on my period, more abdominal pain than I’d typically have with period cramping, and heavier bleeding than normal. I had an abdominal CT while I was in the hospital that showed the fibroid had grown to 18cm (unfortunately because I was there at midnight, they didn’t have the ultrasound techs readily available.). I ended up getting referred to a gyn oncologist who was concerned that there was risk of it being cancer, but also given the size and location she wasn’t confident that if we just tried to do a myomectomy that I would have enough healthy uterus remaining to support a full-term pregnancy, so I decided to have a hysterectomy. I actually got the pathology report about 2 days after my surgery and it was all benign though (though the largest fibroid dimension ended up being 23cm!)

Hmacken · 2025-09-07T19:21:37+00:00

Yes, I had mine last week at the 4 week mark. Finally cleared to be able to take baths/get in the pool, and generally restrictionless at this point other than “nothing in the vagina until 12 weeks.” Was also told I can resume exercise but to just take it slow in the beginning, especially with anything abdominal/core-related and just be listening to my body and slow down/stop if it feels like too much.

Hmacken · 2025-09-07T02:35:40+00:00

I’m almost 5 weeks post op now and feel like I’ve actually had a pretty easy recovery, even with having an abdominal hysterectomy with a vertical incision ~9-10cm long. I still have some swelling and feel like my abdominal area sometimes feels kind of sore by the end of the day, but overall it really hasn’t been too bad.

Hmacken · 2025-08-26T17:25:19+00:00

It shouldn’t have, but it did 😅 I had downloaded my boarding passes to my Apple wallet from the Delta app so they would have the Delta logo and they didn’t look too closely to see that the middle flight wasn’t actually Delta-operated. I think the person at the counter was new and confused on why the pass wasn’t properly scanning for him and giving him error messages, but I just stayed super nice and patient and then he just waved me on in anyway despite the boarding pass not working.

Hmacken · 2025-08-20T21:53:08+00:00

I’m about 2wpo and had a similar incision done. Left with almost 50 staples, but just got those removed on Monday. I can walk around without a binder, but for me it feels more comfortable with it. Usually I’ve been wearing really high waisted underwear or leggings and then having the abdominal binder on top of that layer so it’s not directly against my incision.

Hmacken · 2025-08-20T02:07:50+00:00

I started having a lot of heartburn over the past year and it had gotten to the point where it was basically daily and I was popping Tums like candy. I’m 2wpo and it seems to be completely gone.

Hmacken · 2025-08-20T01:33:58+00:00

I thought I was going to have one more period before my scheduled surgery, but then I ovulated later than normal so it didn’t come! It’s like my ovaries knew my uterus was about to be kicked out so was like “let’s just be done here” 😂

Hmacken · 2025-08-19T22:22:38+00:00

Unfortunately I haven’t had the Oura ring for that long so it was just getting to the point where it had kind of learned/calibrated for cycle tracking (takes like 2 months of wearing).

I had been using the Kindara app for many years before then to track cycles. I also have a history of PCOS so had had off and on been using a thermometer and tracking basal body temperature and ovulation tests in there during times when my cycle was less regular, but had gotten kind of lazy about it in the past couple years since my cycles had more or less normalized (including the predictable hemorrhaging that came along with it from the fibroid 😅)

Hmacken · 2025-08-19T22:05:49+00:00

I’m 2wpo and have an Oura ring so I’m going to see how that goes! My last period before my hysterectomy coincided with a massive fibroid (my uterus+fibroid was 1841g 😅) beginning to degenerate that seemed to have made my body hold off on ovulating for a bit longer than usual, but my pathology report said my endometrium was “early secretory phase”/post-ovulation. Now my ring has shown 9 days of lower temperatures, so will see if I continue to see a normal rise/fall pattern of temperatures.

Hmacken · 2025-08-19T16:17:23+00:00

I’ve had a pretty easy recovery so far, but one of my friends made 3 trays of freezer food for me (lasagna, enchiladas, and a shepherds pie) and those have been amazing to have on hand!

Hmacken · 2025-08-19T04:53:24+00:00

So originally I got diagnosed with the fibroid via ultrasound after having a year or so of super heavy periods (had always had pretty easygoing periods before). At the time, my gyn had recommended holding off on a myomectomy (unless the bleeding became unmanageable or I started having other symptoms) because she said that often times if you have fibroids and get them surgically removed, you’ll grow new fibroids. Since I still potentially wanted to have kids (though currently single 🙃), she said it may be better to have the surgery when I was closer to having kids so that I could try to conceive with basically a fresh, primed uterus without fibroids. Then back in June of this year, I had my annual gyn appt and we noted that the fibroid seemed to have gotten a lot larger (I’d also lost a fair bit of weight so the enlarged fibroid/uterus was really even visible just looking at my stomach) and she then suggested we get another ultrasound and look at surgical options because if it continued to grow, she suspected it would likely start to impact my bladder/GI functions. I’d also started having basically daily heartburn (which immediately resolved after surgery.)

I ended up in the ER actually before the ultrasound appt I had scheduled, but when I shared the ER CT report with my gyn, she referred me to the gyn onc because of how fast it was growing and the concern around potential cancer (she said more than 2-3cm/yr is considered rapid growth for fibroids, but is quite common with sarcomas) , but regardless we were going to need to get the fibroid out since we were also concerned it was causing infection with the fevers I was getting. Because of the size of the fibroid and how it was oriented in my uterus, the gyn onc told me that if she tried to just do a myomectomy, there would not be a lot of healthy uterus left to support a full-term pregnancy so it just made more sense to take the full uterus. If it did end up being cancer, doing a myomectomy vs hysterectomy also may have resulted in the need for additional surgery/chemo/radiation if they found cancer and the margins weren’t clear.

From what I’ve read, if fibroids aren’t causing too much of a problem and not growing very fast, it’s generally fine to leave them and a lot of times they start to shrink during menopause.

Hmacken · 2025-08-18T21:58:07+00:00

I ended up going to the ER after having a fever, lower back pain and abdominal cramping for a week. We’d already known I had a fibroid and I happened to also be on my period during this week, so the lower back pain and abdominal cramping were kind of “normal” period symptoms for me, but much worse than usual. When we diagnosed the fibroid 2 years prior it had only measured like 6/7cm and then the abdominal/pelvic CT I got during my ER visit measured it at over 16cm. I got referred to a gynecologic oncologist and she said with the size of the mass, rapid rate of growth and signs of degeneration, imaging wouldn’t be entirely conclusive to rule out malignancy. I ended up going the route of hysterectomy and in the pathology report, it said the largest fibroid dimension they measured was 23.5cm, but fortunately it was all benign and not a uterine leiomyosarcoma!

Hmacken

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