A woman from England said she had a routine internal check-up and woke up without a uterus or cervix.
As a result, 31-year-old Zoe Bailey has been left unable to get pregnant and unable to have her own child, something she has always dreamed of.
“All my life I had wanted to be a mother and being told this was not going to be possible broke me,” Bailey told Jam Press.
“Some days, I feel like a failure: I’m a woman who can’t do the only thing women are supposed to do, which is have a baby.”
In 2013, Bailey was diagnosed with a condition called endometriosis, which means there is a growth of tissue similar to the lining of the uterus growing outside of it, according to the Mayo Clinic.
One of the symptoms of endometriosis is infertility, but doctors had assured her that would not be the case, until suddenly it became her reality.
Since she was 14 years old, she has always had painful periods, of which she remembers throwing up and even passing out.
Many doctors brushed off her pain as “normal,” but it later turned out that she had the disorder.
After going to the doctor, she went through temporary menopause twice, most recently in 2015, to give her reproductive system a “rest,” but unfortunately, her symptoms returned.
The pain of having endometriosis was so excruciating for Bailey that she ended up spending many days in bed and even had to quit her job because of it.
“It’s not just a bad period, it affects everything: everyday life, relationships, my sex life, the list goes on,” she said of the condition.
In 2018, she was in so much pain that she had to be rushed to St. Mary’s Hospital in Manchester, where she was supposed to undergo an internal medical check.
Instead, she woke up without both parts of her cervix and uterus.
“I didn’t expect anything to be removed from my body that day, but the doctors said they had no choice due to the severity of my condition,” he explained.
“I was so upset and angry, even more by the fact that I had been told there was no chance [the endometriosis] I could be back since they operated on me to remove it”.
She said that all she had wanted her whole life was to be a mother and that it “broke” her when she was told it would not be possible.
Unfortunately, that wasn’t the end of the road for Bailey and her horrible symptoms.
In 2019, she had to have another checkup and woke up without a bowel movement and instead had a stoma bag.
Bailey claimed the stoma pouch was only supposed to be there for six months, but she has to live with it for life after doctors found a blockage filled with endometriosis tissue in her remaining intestines.
“Waking up with the bag on my side and seeing the scar, knowing it was my life now, deflated me,” she admitted.
“It destroyed my confidence and I hated looking at my body.”
The 31-year-old said her stoma pouch has changed what she eats and she now has to be very careful about what goes into her body.
You also have to take into account where you go on a day-to-day basis, as you have to make sure there is a bathroom nearby.
However, the hospital told Jam Press that they are currently looking into what happened during Bailey’s procedure.
“The PALS team is investigating the matter further with St. Mary’s as part of their standard complaint process and will inform Zoe as soon as the investigation is complete,” they told the outlet.
But unfortunately, even after all those treatments and surgeries, he is still in excruciating and extreme pain every day.
She said it has left her depressed and anxious.
Doctors have told her that the only way to make her symptoms go away would be to have a full hysterectomy, a surgery that would remove all of her reproductive organs, including her fallopian tubes.
That means she won’t be able to produce any eggs, so she’s trying to freeze them before she has the surgery.
Bailey has created a GoFundMe to raise money to freeze her eggs.
She hopes to raise just over $6,000 and has already raised over $1,300.
“I think of all the people who have children and abandon them or hurt them and I don’t think they understand how lucky they are,” she said.
Through this devastating test, Bailey hopes to raise awareness about endometriosis in other women and encourage them to work with their doctors if they feel something isn’t right with their bodies.
“All this could have been avoided if they had listened to me at the beginning and everyone should be able to have the opportunity to be mothers,” she said.
“I don’t want anyone to have to go through what I’ve been through.”