?You?re having a girl!?
On our drive home from the 20-week ultrasound, my mind was whirling with excitement. I pictured my future daughter wearing the red flowered dress my mom had made for me when I was four. My husband and I imagined walking her down the aisle at her wedding someday. I briefly felt relieved we would avoid the whole circumcision debate, but then another thought hit me: I really hope she doesn?t have endometriosis.
An estimated one in 10 Canadian women of reproductive age?or 176 million women worldwide?suffers from endometriosis, and I?m one of them. It?s an often painful, always puzzling disease in which endometrial tissue (the lining of the uterus) is found outside the womb, within the abdominal cavity, where it definitely should not be. This tissue often sticks to the bowel, bladder, Fallopian tubes, uterus, ovaries, or ligaments and muscle tissue within the pelvis. The tissue bleeds inside the abdominal cavity, likely through something called retrograde menstruation, in which menstrual blood backs up through the Fallopian tubes, and the immune system doesn?t find and destroy the cells of that rogue tissue as it should. This can result in scarring, cysts, fertility problems and pain that ranges from mild to excruciating. Doctors believe there is some kind of genetic link to endometriosis?you are about seven times more likely to develop it if you have a mother or sister with the disease, which is why I was fretting about whether my daughter would grow u...