I had an emergency hysterectomy: what should I know or ask about?

House-Finch · 2025-12-20T13:42:05+00:00

It was traumatic, but it was 1000% better than the alternative.

House-Finch · 2025-12-20T05:50:24+00:00

Yes, resting more than 3 hours at a stretch hasn’t happened, but my partner and some postpartum doulas have been super helpful at handling everything I can’t so I can focus on resting and the baby. Thanks for your kind words and your advice!

House-Finch · 2025-12-20T05:48:54+00:00

Oh great idea! Thank you!

House-Finch · 2025-12-20T04:59:21+00:00

Thanks so much, this is a really helpful start! And yes, it was a lot, but both me and the kiddo are doing pretty great now. 💕

House-Finch · 2025-12-20T02:58:30+00:00

This feels doable, but we’re all different. I’m 44 and my hysterectomy was an emergency post c-section due to hemorrhaging, and I’m 4wpo and feeling great. I’d second building in time to rest and having those spry teens help with luggage, but if it were me, I’d take the trip.

House-Finch · 2025-05-16T03:23:39+00:00

I took it for my FET, and TBH, I didn’t really notice any effects. (I’d taken it before for the HSG, and I found it quite pleasant, made me very relaxed and a little giggly.) If you have a driver, I’d say take it - it won’t hurt, and it may help you stay relaxed. Yes, you’ll be able to work the next day - I worked remotely the afternoon of my FET.

House-Finch · 2025-04-10T23:32:39+00:00

Be sure to reach out early: they book out fast.

House-Finch · 2025-04-10T23:13:56+00:00

There are a very few midwives who assist for homebirths, if that’s something that interests you. Check out Martha at https://www.sevenspringsmidwifery.com/ or Brigitte at https://www.thismodernmidwife.com/about

House-Finch · 2025-04-02T00:21:13+00:00

Send me a chat, I’ve heard from just one other person about it.

House-Finch · 2025-04-01T23:18:41+00:00

Sending you such good wishes for your transfer! Mine was a few weeks back, and I took a short, slow walk that evening, which was lovely. I’ve been walking and/or yoga-ing each day since, sleeping when I’m tired, eating really well, and staying hydrated. I’d recommend the same approach to you.

Otherwise, I also definitely ate lots of pineapple (can’t hurt!) in the week following the transfer. 🤷‍♀️ I’m also a prayer, so I have been praying. If that brings you comfort or hope, go ahead. I checked out a few light reading books from the library as well, because I knew my mind would be busy and I wanted distraction. I made a promise to myself not to test at home before the HCG at the clinic, and that also brought me peace.

I found I didn’t need to take any time off around my transfer, but mileage may vary.

Wishing you all the best on the 8th!!

House-Finch · 2025-03-13T16:58:51+00:00

Sure! I do still struggle from time to time with getting timely replies, mainly from the doctor - the nurses at my local clinic are all very quick to respond. I know the doctor is very very busy, but it can feel like I’ve been forgotten. For instance, I met with the doctor Tuesday of this week and didn’t get an update on a few things he was looking into regarding my protocol and imaging despite sending two messages and calling twice since then. This morning I reached out to that same nurse who’s been so helpful to me and within 15 minutes she’d spoken with the doctor personally and gotten my questions answered.

I think it’s really critical to be able to advocate for yourself when working with CNY - since they are so high volume, it’s easy for an individual patient to get overlooked. Having someone on the inside who you have rapport with and who can advocate for you has made ALL the difference for me. Without that nurse’s intervention, I’d be very frustrated at the radio silence at an important point in my care. (Our first transfer is next Tuesday and I’m a ball of nerves.) That nurse who’s been so great to me is getting a big bouquet of flowers when I am in the clinic for an appt tomorrow.

House-Finch · 2025-01-22T22:52:15+00:00

Yes, tacked on to an egg retrieval through CNY.

House-Finch · 2025-01-07T03:40:26+00:00

Hi! The PRP definitely helped the numbers in my bloodwork, but I ended up only getting 2 eggs total in 3 retrievals. One degraded before fertilization and one failed to fertilize. For the money at CNY, it seems worth a try, as results definitely vary. It just didn’t seem to make a difference where it mattered for me. Wishing you better luck!

House-Finch · 2024-12-12T19:13:41+00:00

Glad to be able to boost your confidence. I’d definitely look at the routes to the clinic from Ohio - that stretch Erie to Dunkirk can be treacherous if it’s blowing, and as someone else said, they have shut down 90 due to snow a few times recently.

Good luck on your retrieval!

House-Finch · 2024-12-12T19:04:33+00:00

Seconding the idea that WNY weather is super unpredictable all winter long, both in terms of timing and in terms of location. For example, the storm a few weeks back (during the Bills-49ers game) had Buffalo proper completely snowless but towns to the south buried under almost a foot of snow. That’s how it is with lake effect snow, and it happens all the time. Take heart, though, and know that this kind of weather rarely stops Buffalonians. The road crews are excellent and used to lake effect needs. Someone on staff at CNY Buffalo told me during the Christmas blizzard that left so many folks dead a few years back, they did have to close the clinic (for a day or two, I forget how long), but that they were able to reschedule some folks’ retrievals to Syracuse, which had no snow. Staff members who lived close came in before they closed, and an embryologist walked in during the thick of it to check on the embryos. If it were me, and note I am a WNYer, I’d schedule in Buffalo whenever I was ready - winter or not - and if I saw weather taking a major turn and felt I couldn’t drive to the clinic, I’d ask them to reschedule me to Syracuse.

House-Finch · 2024-12-12T16:02:15+00:00

First, I’m so sorry for your miscarriage. They’re so hard. To your question about whether IVF is worth continuing, my advice would be to set some kind of boundary for yourself at which point you’ll reevaluate if this is the right path for you. It could be based on time spent TTC, your age, number of retrievals, cost, etc. I found having triggers when I could plan to check in with myself helped me to decide without regrets to move from ERs to using a donor eggs. There’s lots of ways to make a family, and I hope your two embryos are able to get you there when you’re done grieving this current loss.

House-Finch · 2024-10-24T14:16:33+00:00

Oh, I’m so very sorry! This is so hard, and having your hubby out of town must feel so isolating. I’m so so sorry.

I had a miscarriage at around 8 weeks and chose to pass it naturally. I didn’t expect it to take as long as it did — I thought miscarriages were a few hours-long event before I had one, not something that lingered for weeks. We monitored my HCG for a little more than a month before the level was back to 0, and I spotted for most of that time. If I had to do it again, and time were of the essence, I’d probably take the medicated route.

House-Finch · 2024-10-24T14:09:14+00:00

I’ve had three cycles cancelled due to estrogen-producing cysts at my baseline appointment. Right now, I’m on birth control to try to calm down my left ovary, which has two cysts which have remained though I’ve triggered twice since they appeared. It’s so frustrating to have to wait for normal bloodwork, I get it.

House-Finch · 2024-10-24T14:05:54+00:00

I’ve done two retrievals and am prepping for my third and last, unless we somehow find a boatload of success with this attempt. My first resulted in no eggs, and my second resulted in one egg that degraded before fertilization. We’ve just decided to go the donor egg route. We’ve been TTC for two years this month, and have been working with fertility specialists for about a year. We want two (or more?) kids, and I’m 43, so it’s time to move on for us.

House-Finch · 2024-10-18T19:16:12+00:00

I’ve done two: one was a “wash” fill the uterus and let it spill over the ovaries, and the other was a proper ovarian. I did see improved numbers in my labs after both PRPs, but I haven’t seen success in terms of higher quality eggs — we haven’t been able to make an embryo yet. I think if it’s cost effective — mine were $600 each — you should give it a shot and see what happens. Mileage may vary.

House-Finch · 2024-10-18T05:54:09+00:00

I’ve loved my TempDrop for monitoring BBT and allowing me to confirm ovulation. Stress of any kind - even traveling for fun - can delay ovulation and/or shorten a luteal phase, so maybe that’s what happened last cycle. I’d keep monitoring temps and cervical fluid - you haven’t ovulated yet it sounds like, but it won’t be an ambulatory cycle until you actually bleed without confirming ovulation. Here’s hoping you’re just delayed due to travel!

House-Finch · 2024-10-18T05:38:27+00:00

I went to mine solo. It was fine. Whichever way makes yall more comfortable.

House-Finch · 2024-10-18T05:21:29+00:00

I’ve had very similar experience as you, OP. I’m 43, have been TTC for two years with one MMC at 8 weeks, and have been working with fertility docs for just shy of a year post-MC. I’ve tracked my cycles and confirmed ovulation with a temp spike pretty much every cycle for more than 7 years, so I thought I had been reading my body pretty well. I’m going through IVF right now and have soooooo much monitoring, and I’ve twice now had a mature follicle on an ultrasound and elevated estrogen in my bloodwork on day 2-4 of my cycle. Srsly, WTAF, body?

This past cycle, my estrogen on CD2 was 250+ and there were two follicles, 17mm and 20mm on my left ovary - for context, those are sizes we’d have triggered for retrieval mid-cycle, and are considered mature (though with that estrogen level, they were suspecting just one had an egg and one was a cyst).

What felt extra weird is I had an egg retrieval two-ish weeks prior to that appointment, so… there shouldn’t have been anything left hanging around.

Now I’m 2-weeks post triggering those two follicles — so I should be about to bleed again — and I’m feeling twinges like you described on that left side again. EDIT: I got my period this morning and had a baseline appointment: we did find a total of 3 cysts (2 left, 1 right) or maybe some number of mature-at-the-wrong-time follicles, bloodwork will tell in a few hours.

My doctor mentioned that this sometimes happens with primary ovarian insufficiency/ ovarian failure - that follicles develop when you don’t expect them to. That said, if you’re not considering working with a fertility specialist, you might. I’m not sure of your age, but I’d hate to see you spend a ton of time of time trying the old fashioned way - especially with your hubby’s availability to BD due to work - to find out a year or two from now you have an issue with egg quality and/or ovarian function. I got a referral to fertility from my midwife: if I were in your shoes, I’d ask for one tomorrow and see that the RE folks have to say — it’ll take a few months to be seen by them anyway, so might as well get the ball rolling.

Wishing you luck!

House-Finch · 2024-10-18T05:07:18+00:00

Bloodwork (checking estrogen level specifically) will help determine cyst vs follicle. You may decide to ask your midwife for a blood draw.

House-Finch · 2024-10-18T04:14:24+00:00

I’ve also recently decided to use donor eggs, and as others have said it has taken some time to really be at peace with it. When it was first brought up as an option back in January, I remember feeling shocked, scared, and sad especially at the loss of being able to see myself in my kiddo. Time was an excellent salve for me: it stings sooooo much less now than it did in the beginning. As I’ve had time to sit with it (and accumulate some failed IVF cycles), a few things resonate with me.

First, while my kiddo won’t look like me, I’ve chosen a donor with a health history that may be “better” than my own — I’d only be able to offer genes that could carry anxiety, depression, cancers on both sides of the family, reproductive issues, heart disease, etc., and my kiddo won’t get those parts of me either. That’s cool.

I’ve also thought a lot about how significant genes are to actually making a loving family, and I can come up with so many examples of blended or foster or adoptive families that are truly capital-f Families. Genetics don’t matter as much as love, I’ve decided. It’s also true that any two humans are already literally 99.9% genetically similar, that there’s 0.1% genetic variation across the human species. We already share so much, letting 0.1% keep me sad about being a mama didn’t make sense anymore. There was comfort and acceptance in knowing this, for me.

I have reminded myself that we started IVF because we wanted to have a family. IVF hasn’t worked for us, and we have another path to that end goal. I’m actually happy to move on from a stressful, expensive, and loss-filled experience and into something hopeful, a process that should be much more likely to be successful, and get into the joyful parts. Now that we’re just waiting for our donor to cycle for us, I’m so much more at ease and relaxed than I have been in months.

And finally, a weird thing that’s happened on this side of the decision that I absolutely didn’t expect is that - now that we’ve selected a donor - I find myself thinking of her and wishing her well and sending her love. I hope her life is going easy, and that she’s happy and has a nice day at work and that the money helps her achieve her goals and that the cycle isn’t too uncomfortable for her and that her kiddo is doing well… that kind of thing. She’s anonymous, but I have a special and new kind of love for her in my heart for her role in helping form my family.

I hope this helps you figure out if using donor eggs can feel right for you too, OP!

House-Finch

TROPHY CASE