Eleven years ago, Diana Murungi and her husband Moses decided it was time to start trying for a baby.
After she stopped taking the contraceptive pill, the pair hoped nature would take its course and Diana would soon fall pregnant.
Before long, they got their wish and Diana, now 37, discovered she was expecting a baby. But tragically, she miscarried.
The following year in 2012, Diana was once again hopeful after falling pregnant for a second time, but suffered heartbreak again when she lost the baby.
From the minute she stopped taking the pill, the hopeful mum realised something wasn’t right - and she went to the doctor with her concerns.
“I’ve always had painful periods since I was a teenager. I went to see doctors but I was told, ‘some women get painful periods’,” she told The Mirror.
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“I used to get very sharp pains in my lower abdomen but I noticed it wasn’t only during the days I was on my period - also at random times, mid-cycle.”
Diana was told she was experiencing “ovulation pain” that would go away when she got pregnant - but until then, she should take the pill to manage it.
When the pair decided to try for a baby and Diana stopped taking the pill, she says the pain came back.
“I had pain passing stools and urine, I was bloated and was generally feeling unwell,” she said.
Diana claims she went back to the doctor complaining of sharp pains in her abdomen and was just given antibiotics. But after two miscarriages, she was sure something more serious was wrong and was eventually sent to see a gynaecologist.
“An ultrasound scan showed cysts on my ovaries, fibroids and suspected endometriosis,” she said.
Fibroids are non-cancerous growths that develop in and around the womb, and are thought to be more common in Black women.
Endometriosis is a condition where the lining of the womb begins to grow in other places such as the ovaries or fallopian tubes.
It can cause significant pain and can result in difficulty getting pregnant.
After a laparoscopy, it was confirmed Diana had endometriosis - and the lining of her womb was growing in her bladder, bowels, appendix and colon.
“It was very scary,” Diana said.
“But I was relieved to finally have a reason for the stabbing pain that I had been having.”
Diana and Moses kept trying for a baby, but they had no luck. Eventually their doctor referred the couple for fertility treatment and they began the process of IVF.
However, due to Diana’s endometriosis, she also had to have several operations, including a myomectomy to remove the fibroids and womb lining.
“The operations were to remove the endometriosis, resection of fibroids, removing the scarring caused by the endometriosis and unsticking the tubes which have been blocked by the endometriosis,” Diana explained.
She added that during one operation, surgeons had even removed her appendix because there were signs of endometriosis there.
While going through the physical toll of the operations, Diana also suffered three more miscarriages during her IVF journey.
Determined not to give up, she and Moses tried again. But after Diana had her eggs collected on her last cycle, she realised something wasn’t right.
“I was feeling very bloated and sore, I was in so much pain,” Diana said.
“By the second night I was feeling so poorly and could hardly move. I hadn’t been passing much urine even though I’d been drinking a lot.
“In the middle of the night I was struggling to breathe so I phoned an on-call doctor.”
After speaking to the doctor, Diana was sent to the women’s ward. By now she was in so much pain she was “gasping for air.”
“They wheeled me straight in for an X-ray where they discovered I had lots of fluid in my lungs.
“Back at the ward, I was surrounded by lots of doctors and they gave me an oxygen tube to help me breathe and strong pain medication.”
Doctors told Diana she had ovarian hyperstimulation syndrome (OHSS).
OHSS is more likely to occur in women having IVF after taking hormones to stimulate egg production. It causes the ovaries to swell with eggs, which can be incredibly painful and cause blood clots. In rare, severe cases, it can be fatal.
Feeling delirious from the painkillers, Diana said she didn’t understand how serious her condition was when doctors took her to intensive care.
But she does remember seeing the results of her X-ray - which showed her right lung was submerged in fluid.
Doctors inserted a tube into Diana’s lung to drain the fluid, and thankfully she was allowed to leave intensive care three days later.
After being sent home to recover from OHSS, Diana waited a few months before having embryos transferred into her womb in February 2019.
By March, she took a pregnancy test that came back positive.
“I was excited but still apprehensive due to the previous miscarriages,” Diana said.
She added she was also nervous because, throughout the pregnancy, the sharp pains in her abdomen never went away - despite what she’d been told by doctors in the past.
She said: “Week by week as I had my scans, I was reassured that despite the pain I was having, the baby was ok.
“First, we saw the sac on the ultrasound, and then the flickering heartbeat.”
But when she finally reached the 12 week mark, Diana said she cried “tears of joy.”
After a painful pregnancy during which Diana had to be scanned every fortnight, the couple welcomed their daughter Siima (which means ‘thankful’) into the world on the 1st November 2019, and after nearly a decade of trying, the pair were finally parents.
“I say this over and over again - I would go through all the surgeries, the pricks and the pain to have our beautiful daughter,” Diana said.
“She has a beautiful personality and brings us so much joy. I think I’d be lost without her.”
Despite her baby joy, Diana still lives with intense pain from endometriosis, which she believes has worsened since she gave birth.
She is even considering a hysterectomy as she’s “tired of living with pain” which affects all aspects of her life.
“Not only does it affect me physically, but also my lifestyle and relationships with my friends and family,” she said.
“Perhaps if I was diagnosed earlier it would have been a different story.
“The doctors were helpful but I think we need a lot more research and conversation so that women’s pain isn’t dismissed as ‘just period pain’.”
Despite having to have more operations than she can count during her fertility journey, Diana says she’s grateful for her “brilliant” doctors at Basingstoke Hospital, as well as her consultant at TFP Wessex Fertility, part of the TFP Fertility Group, one of the UK and EU’s leading fertility clinics.
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