Endometriosis and Surrogacy: A Comprehensive Guide for Intended Parents on Endometriosis
Endometriosis is a condition in which tissue that is similar to that which lines the uterus manages to grow outside of the uterus or womb. This condition can cause a lot of problems for women in general.
Specifically, it can cause problems for women who don’t wish to find a surrogate and instead are planning on having a baby themselves.
It is a common diagnosis for the cause of infertility and will cause many parents to have to look into finding a surrogate if the issues cannot be resolved. It can cause a lot of issues with fertility.
This article will discuss endometriosis in detail and will offer a solution for women who suffer from endometriosis through surrogacy.
What Is Endo?
Endometriosis receives its name from the term endometrium.
The endometrium is the tissue that actually makes up the lining of the uterus. Endometriosis occurs when this tissue starts to grow past the womb and into the surrounding area. It can also start growing in other parts of your body.
Typically, endometriosis is found growing in or around the ovaries, the other tissues that are responsible for holding the uterus in place, the fallopian tubes, and the exterior surface of the uterus. In addition, growth can occur in the vagina, the rectum, the bladder, the cervix, the bowel, and the vulva.
Luckily, it is rare for endometriosis to occur in further areas of the body like the brain, lungs, or even your skin.
Endometriosis Symptoms
If you have endometriosis, then you likely know it. Women suffering from it will likely want to find a surrogate to help their dreams of becoming a parent because the symptoms can be made just that much worse.
Perhaps the most common symptom is severe pain. This pain can be felt with different intensities and at different locations.
Perhaps one of the most common complaints that women with endometriosis experience are extreme pain during menstruation. Understandably, there is already a great deal of discomfort during a woman’s period.
However, a woman may suffer from endometriosis if she considers that the pain stemming from her cramps is incredibly intense—more than what she considers normal.
They may also notice that their cramps grow even more severe over time.
Another symptom that is often associated with endometriosis is chronic pain in your lower back or pelvic area. This is pain that is long-term and can sometimes disappear but frequently reappears in those two areas.
One symptom that can also bode a concern for infertility is pain during or after sex.
Women typically describe this pain as something that is deep. It doesn’t necessarily occur near the entrance of the vagina as is typical of pain stemming from penetrative sex. Instead, the pain is felt deeper.
Women also describe having intestinal pain.
This pain can worsen during bowel movements. However, it is also possible that the pain can be felt during the bowel movements alone. In addition, pain, while you urinate, can also be associated with endometriosis.
In some cases, it may be possible to spot blood in your stools and your urine.
Speaking of blood, a symptom of endometriosis is also bleeding or spotting when you’re not on your period. A fertility clinic also suggests being tested if you notice bleeding or spotting while not on your period because it may be a condition other than endometriosis.
There are many other problems that may cause spotting to occur. You should search for “find a fertility clinic near me” and schedule an appointment with a doctor if you notice spotting outside of your cycle.
Another symptom of endometriosis is difficulty with becoming pregnant. Infertility is an unfortunate symptom of endometriosis. If you believe that you may be infertile, then you should visit a fertility clinic for tests.
For couples who wish to become pregnant, then having endometriosis can make becoming pregnant and maintaining the pregnancy difficult or seemingly impossible.
Most fertility doctors would not recommend continuing to try to have children with this condition- and most will inevitably recommend finding a surrogate if the condition is beyond repair or dangerous.
Finally, you may experience digestive issues. Experiencing or suffering from diarrhea, nausea, bloating, or constipation during your period could be indicative of endometriosis.
What Health Problems Can Be Caused By Endometriosis?
One of the initial questions that you may have if you suffer from endometriosis is if it is cancerous. Luckily, the actual growths are not cancerous themselves.
Despite the fact that cancer cells are typically those with unrestrained growth, this isn’t the case with endometriosis. The tissue does stop growing eventually.
More importantly, the tissue cells aren’t competing with other cells for resources as cancer cells do. Nor can these cells travel to the rest of the body like cancer cells do to infect organs like the lungs or brain.
However, even though they’re not cancerous, endometriosis can cause a series of other health problems that can impact infertility. This tissue can actually swell and bleed much like the tissue within the uterus does during a menstruation cycle. Because of this swelling, it can cause some issues–the brunt of them, extreme pain.
The expansive tissue can actually cover your fallopian tubes and block them from functioning correctly. The tissue can even grow into your ovaries. The blood that is trapped inside of the ovaries can form cysts. These are extremely painful and can make conception difficult.
Another health problem that endometriosis can give is inflammation of the uterus and the surrounding area.
This inflammation, and endometriosis, in general, can cause scar tissue to form. It can even make adhesions form. This can make your organs become bound together.
As a result, infertility is almost guaranteed. At the very least, you’ll find that it is incredibly difficult for conception. That’s why women who suffer from endometriosis may ultimately want to consider surrogacy in order to achieve their dreams of having a baby.
Endometriosis can also cause issues with your intestines and bladder. Constipation is common.
However, if these problems continue to occur, they can severely cause damage to your digestive system. Your liver and kidneys may be under a lot of stress and can become inflamed, too.
Those At Risk For Developing Endometriosis
If you’re wondering whether you have endometriosis or may be at risk for developing it at some point in your life—even to the point where you’ve searched for a “fertility clinic near me” to get diagnosed—you aren’t alone.
Endometriosis is actually a common problem of which many women suffer. Currently, it is believed that 11% of women in the United States suffer from endometriosis.
That’s just over 6.5 million women! This may be a smaller estimate as well, considering that women don’t always report reproductive problems.
Technically, endometriosis can occur to any woman or even a young girl who have menstrual periods.
However, it is most prevalent in women between the ages of 30 and 40. There are a few risk factors that may indicate that you are more likely to suffer from endometriosis than others.
For example, a fertility clinic and other researchers have found that those who have not had children before are more likely to develop endometriosis than other women.
In some cases, the fact that they haven’t had children could be due to endometriosis itself. In other cases, this could be because pregnancy allows a rush of hormones to occur that can curb the growth of tissue within your uterus after the pregnancy is over.
Essentially, pregnancy can be like a self-regulating process to ensure that the tissue in the womb is the right size.
Women who experience menstrual periods that last longer than the standard week may also be at risk for developing endometriosis. This is typically a sign that you may have tissue already pressing past the womb. Because this tissue also swells during menstruation, it can make the period last a little longer than it is supposed to.
On the opposite end of the spectrum, a woman who experiences a shorter menstrual cycle, say 27 days or fewer, may also be at risk for developing endometriosis. A shorter cycle can be typically noticed if you receive your periods frequently rather than every three or four weeks.
It isn’t a bad idea to search for a “fertility clinic near me” that can test both yourself and your mother for endometriosis. This is because you are more likely to develop endometriosis if your mother, aunt, sister, or grandmother has or had it due to genetic tendencies.
Essentially, genetics may play a part in determining how likely you are to develop the condition.
Finally, you may also be at risk if you already suffer from a health problem that affects your menstrual blood. If the blood flow isn’t normal during your period, then this may further your risk of developing endometriosis.
All of these conditions might also indicate another health problem stemming from your reproduction cycle.
If any of these apply to you, then you may want to search for a “fertility clinic near me” to be tested for endometriosis. This is especially true for those women who wish to become pregnant.
Causes Of Endometriosis
Currently, despite much research performed by researchers through a fertility clinic or other organizations, the cause for endometriosis is currently unknown.
That being said, there is a lot of research currently being performed on the following conditions or factors that may contribute to developing endometriosis.
That being said, one of the biggest factors that seem to suggest the development of endometriosis is retrograde menstrual flow. This is a situation in which the blood during a menstruation cycle flows towards the fallopian tubes instead of out of the tube.
This blood flow also brings with it tissue that is otherwise normally shed and lost during menstruation.
Because it’s flowing through the fallopian tube, that tissue can become caught within it. With continued retrograde menstrual flow, the tissue continues to drift to other parts of the body such as over and into the ovaries as well as the pelvis.
Since women who have mothers that suffer from endometriosis also typically develop it, many researchers believe that endometriosis could have a genetic factor.
There may be a gene that causes cells to produce more tissue than is necessary to develop in the uterus.
Or it may prompt for the conditions like retrograde menstrual flow to occur which leads to endometriosis as a result.
Some researchers believe that endometriosis could occur due to a problem with the immune system.
Normally, the immune system targets tissue that is growing outside of the uterus and destroys it. A disorder or condition that limits the immune system’s ability to perform this action can potentially cause endo.
This particular cause holds weight because researchers discovered that women who have endometriosis also suffered from immune disorders or diseases as well as certain cancers.
One of the reasons why you might want to utilize a surrogate agency in California to find a surrogate is because of your hormones. Researchers have noticed that estrogen and hormones, in general, may be a cause of endometriosis.
In fact, in women who produced more estrogen than normal, they discovered that the likelihood of developing endometriosis was increased. As such, some researchers believe that hormone imbalances might be a cause of endometriosis.
For women who have a hormone imbalance, the best chance of having a baby is with a surrogate mother who does not have a hormone imbalance.
Finally, some researchers believe that certain surgeries performed on the abdomen might be a cause of endometriosis.
Surgeries like a Cesarean or a hysterectomy might cause endometriosis. In the case of women who are looking to have a baby, if you received a C-section from an earlier birth, you may still develop endometriosis which can make becoming pregnant again quite difficult.
The reason the surgery can cause endometriosis is that tissue is disrupted from the area and accidentally moved. This tissue can land in the uterus and block ovaries or cause other problems.
Researchers have pointed to the presence of endometrial tissue in abdominal scars for their reason of thinking behind this potential cause.
Prevention
Obviously, most women want to know how they can prevent endometriosis from occurring in the first place. Since endometriosis doesn’t have a defined cause, this can be difficult.
For those who carry a genetic prevalence for endometriosis, it may even be impossible, if not extremely difficult to prevent.
However, there are a few methods that you can utilize to lower your risk of developing endometriosis at some point in your life.
Primarily, prevention is focused around the level of estrogen in your body. The only thing that can be really controlled to help lower the risk of endometriosis is estrogen.
However, since estrogen is required to make the womb hospitable for the growth and development of babies, women who wish to become mothers naturally may not want to alter their estrogen levels.
Or they can find relief for the pain and other symptoms that they suffer from and choose to have a baby through a surrogate mother instead.
There are quite a few different methods for reducing the amount of estrogen in the body. One solution is the use of certain birth control pills or patches. These methods of controlling conception can also help to lower the amount of estrogen in your body. However, it also reduces the chances of being able to become pregnant.
Exercise is also typically linked to a decrease in estrogen. Women should typically attempt to exercise at least 4 hours a week. Not only will this help you become healthy overall but it helps lower the amount of estrogen in your body.
Interestingly enough, alcohol has also been shown to increase estrogen levels. As a result, you should typically limit the amount of alcohol that you drink to one per day.
Certain drinks that contain caffeine can also increase the estrogen levels in your body. Caffeinated drinks like green tea, coffee or even sodas can increase estrogen and potentially promote the development of endometriosis.
Surrogacy In California And Endometriosis
For women who are trying to become pregnant but also suffer from endometriosis, you’re likely experienced a great deal of physical and emotional turmoil.
Endometriosis, itself, is extremely painful. It can make trying to conceive the normal way extremely painful. Even if conception does occur, the chances of being able to carry the baby full-term aren’t guaranteed.
Women can experience a lot of difficulties and hardships being pregnant and having endometriosis.
It is safer for women to have a surrogate mother carry the baby.
This allows the intended mother to receive treatment for her endometriosis and experience a greater quality of life while their baby is safely developed with the surrogate mother.
One popular method that women choose when they have endometriosis is in-vitro fertilization or IVF.
This is a method that allows women who experience difficulties conceiving still have a baby. In-vitro fertilization removes a few eggs from the mother and places them in a petri dish. The man’s sperm is then added later.
Once the sperm fertilizes the egg, the embryo is placed within the mother’s uterus or fallopian tube where the baby then grows and develops. Women who have endometriosis typically choose in-vitro fertilization to jump over the hurdle of conception problems because of the overgrown tissue in their uterus.
However, this process isn’t suggested by many surrogate agencies or even fertility clinics for women suffering from endometriosis. That’s because endometriosis can make the womb inhabitable for a baby, even if conception is achieved.
One issue that a woman with endometriosis may face after undergoing an in-vitro fertilization process to have a baby is pre-eclampsia. A study found that women with endometriosis were more likely to develop the condition. This can cause high blood pressure which can be problematic during pregnancy. You can also experience facial swelling and experience pain that exists below your ribs.
Another study found that a woman with endometriosis who became pregnant has an increased chance of having placenta previa occur. This condition causes the placenta to be placed low in the womb. It can cover the cervix which can cause lethal problems for the baby–and mother–during childbirth.
One last study suggested that women who have endometriosis but still became pregnant have an increased risk of delivering a pre-term baby. Many pre-term babies can suffer from birth defects or other complications.
Clearly, women who have endometriosis should think twice even about attempting IVF for themselves to become pregnant.
Instead, you may want to rely on the services of a surrogate agency in California such as ours—Made in the USA Surrogacy. We have surrogate mothers waiting to match with you who are more than willing to help you complete your family safely.
Benefit Of Surrogacy In California For Women With Endometriosis
Instead of undergoing IVF themselves, intended mothers should think about how to find a surrogate from our Surrogacy agency in Roseville, CA to find a surrogate and develop their baby with the help of a woman with trusted pregnancy history.
Our surrogacy agency closely examines the health of each surrogate before accepting them into the agency, and all potential surrogate mothers must have a proven pregnancy history.
We closely examine all of their medical history including births, hospital records, current health through pap smear and OBGYN clearances.
Our surrogate mothers are checked to ensure that they do not suffer from endometriosis and can carry your baby safely and healthily within them. Many of our surrogates have carried children—sometimes up to 4 children of their own, and successfully.
If you are a mother who suffers from endometriosis, or you know someone who struggles with this condition, we encourage you to should consider having our surrogates carry your baby.
It’s safer for you, safer for the baby, and safer for everyone. More importantly, you can focus on your own treatment and find relief from your symptoms while your baby develops.
Contact us by filling out our parent inquiry form today!
