My most recent consult: any opinions welcome

[Guest guest]

My life was a blissful one of greatly reduced email for a few days...until I

realized I had somehow inadvertently unsubscribed from this list! So now I'm

back, just in time to seek more information.

After a few appointments with my regular OB/GYN, I had a consultation

yesterday with the surgeon to whom he referred me. So, this doc was great in

terms of answering questions, took plenty of time with me, very thorough,

etc. Here's what we came up with:

Number one, I *finally* got a referral for an MRI out of him (something I'd

been rather unsuccessful at lobbying for from my doc), which I will have

next Monday morning. Among the surgeon's few cheesy comments was " MRI is the

way to fly, " meaning that he couldn't make any more sense out of the

non-information-delivering reports from past scans than I could. My only

trepidation with this procedure is administering a Fleets enema to myself

early on the morning of the MRI -- anyone else done this? Am I going to be

able to figure this out and do it to myself? What happens, exactly?

After that, he wants to get together again and talk about what we're looking

at. However, based on a manual examination, and what he can discern from my

old ultrasounds/scans, he thinks I absolutely should have the myo before

trying to get pregnant. His exact quote: " You are the classic case of

someone who gets pregnant pretty easily but can't sustain a pregnancy. " When

I told him my referring doc had said, " If I were you, I'd probably go ahead

and just try to get pregnant and see what happens, " surgeon doc said, " He's

out of his freakin' mind. " I asked if his livelihood as a surgeon required

him to say that, and he took my swipe in stride and said in his experience,

he just didn't see any way a fetus could compete with my

5-month-pregnancy-sized fibroid (and that's just the largest one that we can

all see/feel/etc.)

So, let's assume surgery is a given in my nearish future. Although he said

he'd wait to see the MRI, his preliminary advice is Lupron (3 months at

first, then check to see what reduction there is in size, possibly up to 6

months total) in order to allow me to have a successful laproscopic myo. I

told him my reservations with Lupron (based mostly on what I've learned

here) and he said he could prescribe me estrogen as well, as an " add-back "

to try to balance things out. Worst case without Lupron? He said (again

pending MRI results) that he imagined I'd have to have an open myo with a

vertical incision.

If I insisted on an open myo sans Lupron, he said he'd be fine to do that,

too. It was his opinion that the benefits of laproscopic surgery and short

recovery time vs. open and longer recover time outweighed the risks of

Lupron.

And after all that, he said, " This would basically mean you're committing

yourself to C-section deliveries, also. I would just plan on elective

C-sections. " I don't yet know how I feel about that.

Anyone have any thoughts they can share? I'm really torn about a lot of

this, so plan to take my time making a decision. In the meantime, I've got

that Monday morning enema to look forward to!

Thanks.

in St. Louis