Novienne Lacquiere Wadia was looking for a long-term home in Dubai when she moved to the emirate in 2016 – this meant doing research on residential areas, supermarkets and doctors. One of the specialists she wanted to identify was a gynaecologist who could do regular well-being check-ups and when the time came, help her with her pregnancy. And so it happened that the Indian expat found one who did a scan and pointed out something that may grow to become an issue later on: a giant fibroid – a lump made of muscle and fibre. At the time, the doctor told her to wait it out, for the symptoms were mild and easy to navigate. “I let it be as is and then in 2018, I started getting a lot of heavy bleeding, to the extent that even at night I had to change my napkin, which is something you don’t generally have to do. And I was passing a lot of blood clots,” she says.
When she visited another doctor – a change of insurance prompted a change in healthcare providers – the doctor explained that the bleeding was due to fibroids and if she wanted to conceive – which was more and more on Wadia’s mind – this was the time to remove it. “She told me that because the fibroid was in the main area where the baby is born, it would be dangerous to have a baby without taking the fibroid out,” she explains.
By the time she had her operation it was November of that year. It was a minimally invasive laparoscopy – a key hole surgery – for the removal. The operation, she mulls, usually takes anywhere between one-and-a-half to three hours. So when she was still on the operating table four hours on, it was a bit disturbing; it turned out that it wasn’t one giant fibroid – there were four!
“The doctor also mentioned that there were two smaller ones that were in the uterine wall, which he couldn’t access at the time, and because they were tiny he didn’t want to invade that area,” she recalls.
Still, with recovery and other things, it would be another two years before the couple would conceive. “Before I conceived, in the scan – I was running all the normal scans and tests – my doctor brought it to my notice that I had fibroids again, this time there were three. Two small, one big again.
“The thing with fibroids is there’s nothing you can really do to stop the growth of fibroids, if you are prone to it, it just happens. So I conceived in 2021 in spite of fibroids,” she says.
There were three points in her pregnancy that she felt the impact of the fibroids most acutely.
First at week five…
“I had some spotting, which freaked me out, but I called my doctor and he told me as long as it’s just a little bit and it doesn’t increase with time, it should be alright because some women do get spotting at that stage. But after a day or so it disappeared,” she says. The fibroids grew around the amniotic sac, she adds, and this meant that it didn’t mess with the growth of the young one.
At week 12…
“When I was 12 or 13 weeks pregnant, I had these period-like cramps. It was scary because it’s not something you expect when you are pregnant. So I called up my doctor and he said, ‘It’s better if you come visit me because I will only be able to tell if I see.' So I went immediately and spoke to him in his clinic and he kind of asked me how long and how often the ‘contractions’ were happening. He did a scan, the baby seemed alright. He said it could possibly be because of fibroids. He told me to monitor how long the contractions are and whether I feel better. He recommended I take bed rest as much as possible, so I kind of took bed rest and they eased out in two days,” she says.
Fibroids need a hormone called oestrogen to grow, explains US-based website WebMD. Your body produces more of it when you're pregnant. With limited space and resources a baby and fibroids may compete for the nutrients they need; this may cause cramping.
The rest of the gestation period went by without much trouble, but the issue of fibroids once again came to the fore just before delivery.
Before delivery…
“When we were deciding the birth plan for the baby, the issue was the scar from my fibroid removal surgery was too deep to risk a labour, so I had no option to go in for a planned C-section, because my uterus would get too stressed out if I went into labour. So I had to give birth at 39 weeks instead of 40 to make sure I didn’t go into labour,” she says.
It didn’t however hinder baby-mum bonding time; when the infant was born, the baby was laid on her chest for skin-to-skin introductions.
Nearly four months on, the mum is enjoying the time with her baby. The fibroids are not giving her any trouble – and even if they were, she knows, she can handle it.
* You are strong. “You have a lot more strength than you think you do – carrying a baby for nine months is not easy and you might have some fears and anxiety about whether you’ll be able to carry the baby, but we women have much more strength than we think we do. You just have to believe in yourself and you’ll do it,” she says.
* The loneliness is an illusion. “There might be times you might feel lonely in spite of having people around you but that’s just a feeling; sometimes you feel people don’t understand you or they don’t know what you are going through and you have hormonal changes, you may start not liking your spouse but that’s just a thing because you are going through a lot within you so you are suddenly not yourself. Give it time,” she adds.
* You will struggle, accept it. She says: “No matter how much you research you are still going to have to struggle. Don’t judge yourself, don’t be too harsh on yourself, you won’t get it right immediately, it’ll take time.”
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