It Was Like Somebody Turned on a Faucet

CB discusses the process of finding a treatment for her painful periods and heavy menstrual bleeding. She talks about trying birth control pills and an IUD to no avail. Eventually, she received an ultrasound in an emergency room and found out that she has fibroids and cysts.

Transcript

CB: I didn't start going to see like a gynecologist until I was 18.

And even at 18 they were like, "oh well let's try [hormonal] birth control." Birth control did not help, birth control did not do anything.

Then it was let's try IUD. And to be honest, I feel like the IUD kind of made my issues worse because once I got the IUD, I bled for years straight. And they kept saying like, "Oh you're gonna bleed a little bit, you're gonna bleed a little bit while you have it.” But it was so uncomfortable I was hurting more, and I was bleeding. And I was like well if it's supposed to stop like it hasn't stopped, why am I still bleeding? 

So, one day I randomly went into the office didn't schedule appointment and said take it out now so they took it out.

And then first year of law school -- I don't know if it was like the stress of law school and everything else -- and I was like okay, I don't know what's going on, but this is getting worse. And then winter break of my first year of law school, I went on a trip.

And what I thought was my regular cycle, it was like somebody turned on a faucet, and it wouldn't stop. And it just kept going and kept coming. To the point that my partner, he ran to the nearest store trying to get things because we had no idea what was going on.

I ended up coming back home. I called my doctor. My doctor was like, you know, "I need you to get an ultrasound, but if I give you the prescription for the ultrasound, they're going to make you wait to schedule.” And I said no I'll do you one better, I'm going to the emergency room." 

I went to the emergency room and get an ultrasound and the ER doctor came in and she said, "Do you want to have children?”

And my heart sank, and I think my heart sank because I'm one of those type of people that [say] don't take the choice away from me. And I have a lot of siblings. And I used to say "oh, I don't want children, I don't want children, I just want to be the rich auntie." Until I was put in a position where I was told like, you know, you may not be able to have children. 

During that ultrasound they had found like, fibroids and cysts, they couldn't see my left fallopian tube. It was just a lot.