Anyone experienced pregnancy with fibroids?

[KellyJellyfish]

12 weeks pregnant with my first and scan showed a 3cm fibroid submucosal fibroid at the top of my womb (poking into the space where there baby is)

I’n a bit nervous, I don’t know what complications this could cause or if it will get any bigger, anyone else gone through pregnancy with fibroids?

Yes, massive ones. No real issues. Minor issue: before we knew they were there, we (as in me, partner, multiple midwives) thought one of them was the baby’s head, and thus assumed the baby was breach, which caused a lot of worry. But the scan later (38 weeks?) showed it wasn’t. If I had known how big the fibroids get in pregnancy, it would have been a more pleasant few weeks.

Thanks! Good to know it worked out ok. How much bigger did yours get?

mine was originally found during a scan to check IUS placement back in Christmas, I have no idea what size though annoyingly, it’s currently 3cm (baby is around 5cm) I’m worried how big it will get, it’s sort of sitting on top to the right of the baby currently. Unfortunately it’s the type that is actually in the womb, rather than just in the surrounding muscle, so more likely to cause issues than the other sort.

Yes. I had a history of them & they grew during the pregnancy. Some time ago now so scans not as accurate as they are now. There was just a lot of bleeding (had a planned caeserian because of them) but baby was fine and healthy and after a number of blood transfusions, I was fine as well. By my 6 week check, they'd all shrunk and disappeared.

I've gone through 2 pregnancies with fibroids.

Mine are pedunculated though, so on the side.
My experiences couldn't have been more different for the 2 pregnancies.

First pregnancy I had a small baby who was in breech position to the side of the fibroids. Everything was fine until I ended up in hospital in absolute agony. The fibroids were enormous and as the baby grew, it was cutting off the blood supply to the fibroids. I discharged myself after a week as I was getting worse and knew I'd be better cared for at home.
A few weeks later I had a horrendous birth as the consultant and doctors didn't believe fibroids could cause pain so I was denied pain relief and they didn't believe I was in labour. I was in labour for 4 days and my baby (and me) almost died due to their incompetence.

I was supposed to have the fibroids removed but then Covid hit.

Second (unplanned!) baby was much bigger and was transverse. I expected issues with the fibroids but had no pain at all. I needed a CS at 38wks due to the baby's position and they were worried there'd be huge amounts of bleeding due to the fibroids. I could hear the doctors talking on the ward about trying to persuade me to go home and come back another day so I would be someone else's problem.

I refused to change my CS date (it was supposed to be asap due to risk of cord prolapse) and all went as planned. No extra bleeding and no issues with the fibroids whatsoever.

OP I don't want to worry you with the first story but it was due to lack of hospital knowledge/care so hopefully you wouldn't be in that situation.

Be aware of any changes and any new pain. Mine came from nowhere and was excruciating but it didn't happen until the last month of pregnancy.

I have no idea why there was no issue the second time round as they still grew large but not to the extent of the first pregnancy.

I have three of them (25 weeks pregnant) and the consultant isn’t overly concerned. Mine are about 5cm and the consultant said that’s not big enough to cause real problems - he sees some which are 20cm+.

They might need to induce me and there might be more bleeding during birth apparently, but forewarned is forearmed I guess. Fibroids are not rare and medical staff know what they’re doing.

@KellyJellyfish three, the biggest was the size of the baby’s head. They were only discovered in pregnancy so don’t know how big they are normally. It explained the heavy painful periods I’ve always had.

Yes I had a 15cm fibroid, didn't know it existed until I had a bleed around 10 weeks. Didn't cause any other problems. I'm assuming it's still there!

I am 6 weeks pregnant. I had a scan back in January showing a subserosal fibroid about 3cm, so outside the uterus. Midwife said they will monitor it through the pregnancy. Hopefully the people you have seen have said the same to you OP?

I have two fibroids the outside the womb type (pendunculated). Only found out when they caused extreme pain around week 10 due to growing so fast the blood supply couldn’t keep up, called red degeneration. Was a scary day with a suspected ectopic or appendicitis or twisted ovary or tumour. Then they grew to probably 20cm each (like an earlier poster I thought one was the head) and during labour they had contractions. Shrank back down afterwards. I did have an emergency caesarean but for other reasons, so overall they didn’t harm the pregnancy. Just be aware there is a chance of pain, quite rare I think and mine only lasted a few days.

Thanks all!

Yes and no problems at all.

I had to have a monitored birth because of the risk of haemorrhage (didn’t happen either time). Had to have a cannula and a drug in a drip post birth where I had to sit for an hour afterwards. But otherwise it was uneventful and still is even now. I still get asked if the fibroid causes me problems and they’re always surprised when I saw I’ve never had any pain from it at all.

*say

I am reaching out in the hope that I am not alone with this. The last 2 weeks have been the hardest of my life.

I am almost 14 weeks pregnant, the baby is developing well and all good but 2 weeks ago I was admitted to hospital in the worst pain I have ever felt. It turns out my 8cm fibroid had developed an abscess which had burst (apparently this is very rare) I had to have keyhole surgery to remove the puss etc (the puss had also stuck my intestine to my uterus).

The following week was awful, I was discharged but ended up back in hospital twice due to 2 more flare ups because of the fibroid degeneration. The pain was so back I was going in and out of consciousness. It has been a week since the last flare up and I haven’t had the pain but I am honestly terrified of the next time I have a flare up.

Has anyone experienced painful flare ups with fibroid degeneration? If so how long did it last and how many ‘bouts’ did you have?

I was also told a couple of days ago that I am a high risk for pre-eclampsia which is also scary, is that common?

Thank you,
N

@NPS222
It must be quite a painful and I hope you are through this and have recovered well through and through with your pregnancy too.

I came across this because I am ttc with fibroids but we are monitoring them before I conceive. I do get some sharp pain atimes and cannot tell if it is any of the fibroids degenerating or something else like a fibroid growth.

However @KellyJellyfish it's good to read some post here from experienced women with pregnancy and fibroids. I am now begging to feel much more positive with this possible scenario. Thank you.