IVF Egg Retrieval and Stage IV Endometriosis: One Woman’s Story
My egg retrieval was scheduled for 9:30AM, and I woke up feeling pretty calm, even excited. This was my third egg retrieval ever, my last two were 6–7 years ago with a different partner. They were both relatively uneventful, so I was expecting the same for this one. I could not have been more wrong.
Everything went very well during the procedure and shortly after. They retrieved 23 eggs- woohoo! As I had been a high responder, I knew I would have plenty. I woke up from the anesthesia fine, but I was in a bit of pain, so the very kind nurse gave me some additional pain medication. I was discharged about an hour and a half after the start of my procedure.
When I got home, I felt a bit crampy, but I knew it was to be expected. I was just planning on vegging out on the couch with my husband. About 2.5 hours after my procedure, I noticed a little bit of bleeding. Then more bleeding. So I called the nurse to check in. They said it was probably nothing, but they wanted to check me out to be sure so they asked me to come in to the ER section of the hospital, where they would then be paged to come examine me.
I got to the hospital around 3PM, and it was there that the nightmare began. My pain kept intensifying- it was not the normal cramps I had experienced with my previous two egg retrievals. I waited for 2 hours before they could bring me back. In those 2 hours the pain got worse. I was alone, my husband or my sister couldn’t come in to the hospital because of COVID-19.
When they finally brought me back, my doctor came and checked in on me. They said they would do an ultrasound to see what was going on. If everything looked normal on the ultrasound, he mentioned that the pain could just be related to my Endometriosis. At this point, my pain felt like a really, really bad period- which I had felt many times before.
Before my ultrasound, the doctors and nurses wanted to get my pain under control so they gave me one dose of morphine. We waited, but nothing happened. The pain actually got worse. After the second dose of morphine, I started moaning and writhing in torment. After the dose of dilaudid, I couldn’t string sentences together anymore without pausing to yelp in anguish. I couldn’t move. It hurt to breathe. I was on the phone with my sister and husband, but could barely speak anymore. I felt utterly alone and forsaken. I had never felt pain like this in my life, and I have stage IV Endo so I’m familiar with pain. Since 3 doses of narcotics didn’t lessen the torture, I thought something must be horribly wrong. I must have internal bleeding, they must have nicked an organ during the retrieval, something. There was no way this level of affliction could be due to Endo.
In the end, this slow-motion jackhammering agony in my lower abdomen radiating up to my belly button was none other than Endometriosis. My ultrasound (which I could only tolerate with fentanyl) revealed a small amount of pelvic bleeding, normal with the egg retrieval. It would be normal for the normal woman, but a woman with Endometriosis is not a normal woman. This small amount of normal bleeding awoke the sleeping Endo giant in my belly and gave me one of the worst, most traumatic nights of my life.
All my labs were normal, but the doctor decided to admit me overnight for pain management and observation. I was alone, slightly delirious from all the narcotics, but still in an intense amount of agony. Around 3AM, the suffering lessened slightly, and I was finally able to sleep for an hour or two.
By the morning, I was still in excruciating pain, but it was feeling more like the period pains I was used to. The morning team of doctors and nurses evaluated me and agreed to discharge me that day. The doctor who did my egg retrieval the previous morning stopped by and explained that the pain was just due to my pelvic hypersensitivity because of Endometriosis.
At this point, I was angry. This was not the first time Endometriosis landed me in the ER, but it was the first time I was certain that this amount of pain could not simply be from Endo. But it was. I felt betrayed by my organs. I was also angry that no doctor ever warned me that I could be in intense suffering after a simple procedure like an egg retrieval.
This experience taught me that Endometriosis is not normal. And it is certainly not simple. And the word just should never be anywhere near the word Endometriosis. Normal and simple procedures may be complicated and excruciating for a woman with Endometriosis. It is such an agonizing disorder that its effects should never be chalked up to just endo because the very word just belittles the debilitating suffering it causes.
I hope and pray that no woman ever suffers the amount of pain I endured after my egg retrieval, but I do think a woman with Endometriosis should be warned that, unfortunately, my story could be a version of her story too.
