It all began...

I first heard about endometrial ablation as a 28 year old. An acquaintance had one done after her second child. I didn't think about it again for 5 years. Another acquaintance sat down next to me at an after church fellowship and said, "Let me tell you about God's gift to women." I was thinking more along the lines of a new dark chocolate, Spanx(R), or even menopause. No, she launched into singing the praises of endometrial ablation, specifically, NovaSure(R).

My interested was piqued. She told me her story of being a woman in her late 40's and dealing with ridiculously heavy periods. Periods that arrived whenever they wanted. Periods that left her in situations requiring friends to purchase pants for her while dining out. Really, what are you going to do? Walk out of a nice restaurant a bloody mess? Periods that lasted longer than 7 days and required the world's largest tampons and pads. Periods that left her exhausted. But, she no longer had to deal with periods. NovaSure took care of that. She had energy. She was able to exercise again. She got my attention. I'd switched from O.B.(R) Ultra Tampons to the Diva Cup (R) and was aware of exactly how much I was bleeding. At 33 years of age I was exhausted. I gave up my gym membership because I was just too tired. I mentioned that and she said, "You can only have the procedure done if you're done having kids. You're still pretty young..." I replied that while I was young enough to have more babies, our family was complete with two children. "Oh! You should definitely have NovaSure done! It's so great!"

That was in the Fall of 2011. I thought back to that conversation repeatedly over the following months. Every time my monthly came early... or late... or twice in one month I thought, "Maybe I should see my doctor and ask him about NovaSure."

Fast forward to March 2012. I was sick of feeling tired. Sick of bleeding that was so heavy that I hesitated to leave the house. Sick of not being able to be the mother that I wanted to be to my children.  Sick of losing the better part of 3 weeks of every month to my period. One week of PMS. One week of bleeding. One week just trying to get back to whatever "normal" was. Maybe my math is off, but, the way I figured it, I only had one "good" week a month. Looking at over a year: 3 months of PMS, 3 months bleeding, 3 months recovering, 3 months of "normal." When I talked to my husband in those terms, he jumped right on board and encouraged me to call my doctor.

To be continued...