A success story from Melbourne, Australia

I am delighted to write that after being diagnosed with Asherman’s Syndrome in June 2007 my husband and I welcomed a beautiful baby boy into our family on the 5th of September 2008. I wanted to share our story as I know I drew such comfort from these positive stories when undergoing treatment and during my pregnancy.

Our story in a nutshell –

- My first pregnancy ended in a missed miscarriage at 12 weeks in June 2006, leading to a D&C by my OB. We had had no difficulty conceiving on this occasion, and I have no history of gyne issues.

- After a frustrating 9 months trying to conceive again (including my OB’s recommendation to “just don’t think so much about it”), my OB finally agreed to do a hyst/lap. He reported that the uterus looked normal externally but that he had had difficulty accessing inside the uterus itself. My husband recollects that we actually did raise the possibility of AS at this stage (thanks to a lot of trawling of the internet, we knew the condition existed), but my OB dismissed it (perhaps he did not want to consider the possibility of AS, as he had undertaken the D&C). He sent me to have an x-ray, which revealed what looked like an abnormally shaped uterus and non-patent tubes. As you can imagine, I was very upset by this news, but my OB could not fit me in to discuss the results for another 6 weeks. This was the “straw that broke the camel’s back” and I decided to leave that OB and asked my GP to refer me to a local IVF clinic.

- Due to a cancellation I was able to see the IVF clinic within a week – and in the week after I was correctly diagnosed with AS through the selection of the correct diagnostic tool (saline ultrasound). The diagnosis was devastating but at least now we had some answers and a way of moving forward.

- Later that week my husband found the Asherman’s support group, and through the site I located Dr Vancaillie in Sydney, and was operated upon in October 2007. I was incredibly fortunate, in that while the scarring completely sealed off the bottom third of my uterus, 90% of the implantable area of the uterus was not scarred at all. (It is worth noting that the scarring was not where the pregnancy had implanted, so was not due to an over-vigorous extraction – was it carelessness in inserting / removing the instruments?)

- We were given the green light to conceive and did so in the second month of trying.

- As you’d imagine, I was a little nervous in the first trimester, but overall had a very good pregnancy, aside from a little spotting early on.

- Angus was born 8 pounds and one ounce at 40 weeks.

It has been somewhat of a long journey to parenthood, but we are just so thrilled to be here at last.

I found the Asherman’s group to be incredibly informative and supportive – I really don’t know if we would have our new baby if not for this fanatastic online community.