Leila and Imraan | Stellenbosch, Western Cape | Endometriosis + IVF | Happy ending
Leila:
I had painful periods my whole life. From age thirteen. I would faint in school assemblies, vomit in the bathroom, miss work in my twenties. My mother said it was normal. My aunties said it was normal. One GP gave me Ponstan and told me to “push through.” Another said the pill would fix it, which it did, sort of, in the way that putting a sticker over a warning light on your car dashboard “fixes” the problem.
I came off the pill at 31 because we wanted to try.
Nothing happened. For two years.
I want to skip ahead because the trying part is the same for everyone and you’ve heard it already. The apps. The strips. The hope. The blood. The googling at 2am.
The thing I want to tell you about is the laparoscopy.
The surgeon was a woman with very short grey hair and very kind eyes and she said to me before they put me under, “I think we’re going to find something today.” I remember thinking she sounded too sure. I remember thinking, please be wrong, please let it be nothing, let me just be unlucky.
She wasn’t wrong.
Stage four endometriosis. On my ovaries. On my fallopian tubes. On my bowel. On my diaphragm, which apparently can happen, which apparently is a thing. I had been walking around for nineteen years with my reproductive system being slowly strangled and three different doctors had told me it was “just bad periods.”
I cried when she told me. Not because I was sad. Because I was furious. Nineteen years.
Imraan:
I want to talk for a minute because Leila will not give herself enough credit. She came out of that surgery and within two months she had read every endometriosis paper on the internet. She joined a support group. She found a fertility specialist who understood endo, which is harder than it sounds. She made appointments. She negotiated. She fought our medical aid for the diagnostic costs, which they tried to refuse, and she won, twice.
I’m her husband. I love her. I want to be honest about something: I felt useless during this whole period of our lives. There is nothing a man can do during this. You can be present. You can drive to appointments. You can hold her hair when she throws up from the hormones. You cannot fix it. You cannot take it from her. I would have. I would have taken every needle, every scan, every disappointment if I could.
I couldn’t.
So I made her tea. I drove her to Cape Town for appointments. I learned what every medication was for and I set alarms on my phone for the injection times. I bought her flowers on transfer day, which she said was corny, and then she cried, so I knew it wasn’t.
Leila:
We did IVF. The first cycle, we got four embryos. Two were transferred. Neither stuck.
I want to tell you what a failed embryo transfer feels like, because nobody tells you. You go in. You see the embryo on the screen, this little speck, this collection of cells that contains, in theory, your child. They put it inside you. You go home. You lie on the couch. You wait two weeks. You feel symptoms that you cannot tell are real or imagined. And then you bleed.
The first time we failed, I lay in bed for three days. I didn’t shower. Imraan brought me food and I didn’t eat it. I felt like I had killed something, which is irrational, but grief does not consult logic before it arrives.
The second cycle, we transferred one. Just one. I made them transfer just one because I couldn’t handle the maths of “two and neither survived” again.
That one is now sixteen months old.
His name is Yusuf. He is the loudest child in the Western Cape. He has Imraan’s eyes and my temper and a small dimple on his left cheek that I did not get from anyone, that just appeared, his own little contribution to himself.
Imraan:
I want to say one more thing. If you are reading this and you are in the middle of it. I know what you want me to say. You want me to say “don’t give up, it will work out, look at us.” I’m not going to say that. Because for some people it does not work out, and for them the “look at us” stories are a knife.
What I will say is: get yourself a doctor who believes you. If three doctors have dismissed your pain, find a fourth. If you suspect endometriosis, push for the laparoscopy. Don’t let anyone tell you nineteen years of agony is “just bad periods.” Don’t waste the time we wasted.
And to my wife I know you’re going to read this before we publish it. Thank you for not giving up on your own body, even when the doctors did. Thank you for fighting for him. Thank you for fighting for us.
Leila and Imraan, Stellenbosch
Have a fertility journey to share? Whether you’re at the start, in the messy middle, or holding a baby you fought hard for your story could be the one that makes another South African feel less alone tonight.
Inspired by real journeys — names and details changed.
Submit your story to Fertility Solutions.
Email us at info@fertilitysolutions.co.za
