#atozchallenge - Laparoscopy

I posted at the time that I had the hysteroscopy and laparoscopy so if you’re wanting to know what it was like, check here. A year on, I sort of view that as the turning point in our journey. Up until that point we had no idea what, if anything, was wrong, ever since then it’s been all about the IVF.

The laparoscopy was basically a sort of keyhole surgery to look at my reproductive organs to see what was happening and if there was anything obviously wrong. In my case they found the endometriosis and the scarring that had caused, but it can be used to diagnose all number of possible causes for infertility.

At the time it seemed like a big scary procedure and afterwards I was sore and uncomfortable, not to mention upset by the results of it. Looking back in hindsight, it really wasn’t as bad as I thought it was. I think the biggest hang up was the fact that it involved surgery/people looking at bits that aren’t normally on display.

Different doctors do it in a different way, but generally they’ll go in just below or just inside your belly button. I’ve got a cool little scar inside my belly button from the three stitches that I had from it. I think that bothered me more than anything else afterwards; I’m not a squeamish person, but those three little stitches just grossed me out no end. I was particularly upset when I had my first shower after the little op and saw the blood through the dressing and it just really bothered me.

I would say, if you’re having a laparoscopy, make sure you take plenty of time off work. I had the op on the Monday and then returned to work on the Wednesday because the doctor said I wouldn’t need more than a couple of days off; well he’d obviously never had anyone poking around in his uterus! Looking on the internet afterwards almost everyone who’d had it done said ‘take a week to recover’ and I would definitely agree with this. I worked three days and by the third day (which was thankfully a quieter day) I was feeling a little more like myself, on that first day back at work I almost thought I’d have to go home because I just couldn’t get comfortable at all.

If your doctor suggests a laparoscopy to rule out or attempt to identify causes of infertility, I’d definitely recommend it. No, it’s not the most pleasant experience in the world and it might not answer all the questions, but it gives the doctors a chance to see exactly what is going on in there. Plus if there’s something fixable in there, they might be able to take care of it while they’re in there, so it can help to save more invasive procedures later on.