Eight fibroids were removed in an abdominal myomectomy after a failed transfer. Just five months later, a donor egg embryo led to pregnancy.
⚠️ These stories are personal experiences, not medical advice or scientific evidence. Success stories are more likely to be shared than unsuccessful ones, so they should not be interpreted as proof that a treatment works. Always discuss treatment decisions with your doctor.
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📊 Story Snapshot
👩 Age: Not stated📆 Years trying: Not stated
🧬 Embryo: Donor egg embryo
🧪 Retrievals: Not stated
🐣 Transfers: 2
💊 Diagnosis: Uterine issues (fibroids)
📈 Outcome: Pregnant
I’ve had fibroids for a while but they did grow a bit after doing IVF/IUI. We ended up moving to donor eggs and I had a sono done by my new doctor. The fibroids had grown in size and number but were still fairly small (2-6 cm). The concerning part was that they were in my uterus and one was distorting the shape of my uterus.
Fibroid removal surgery/myomectomy is often not done unless it’s a last resort and absolutely necessary as there are risks with the surgery. My doctor said we could try 1 embryo transfer and if it failed, I would need to have the fibroids removed. We did the transfer and unfortunately it failed so we booked the surgery.
I needed an open abdominal myomectomy due to the location of my fibroids. Some people may be able to have them removed by hysteroscopy or laparoscopy. The risks with an open abdominal myomectomy are not to be taken lightly. Moderate risk of bleeding, risks of general anesthesia, risks of infection, risk of damage/scarring to your ovaries and weakness in the uterus meaning you will need a C-section if you become pregnant. Since we used donor eggs I wasn’t concerned about damage to my ovaries and having had general anesthesia before I was ok with that.
The surgery went well. My fertility doctor also does gynecological surgeries and he is affiliated with one of the hospitals in my area so he performed my surgery. He used a newer technique called a mini-lap which left me with a 2.5 inch incision and they removed 8 fibroids.
I required 5 months of recovery before attempting another embryo transfer and I am happy to say that I am finally pregnant. Doesn’t matter to me in the least that I will need a C-section.
I also noticed that after the surgery, my periods had become lighter, shorter and less crampy. Didn’t realize that my periods were such a problem in our journey of trying to conceive.
The other issue with having a myomectomy is that the fibroids can grow back. Mine are starting to. And doing fertility treatments can accelerate the growth of the fibroids.
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