My nephew, Connor, was born on July 28, 2009, and it was a bit of a miracle that he was healthy. Because, as it turns out, he wasn't the only thing growing in my sister in law's midriff.
The simple fact is that fibroids pregnancy is one of the hardest kinds of pregnancy to go through. And when it comes to a fibroids pregnancy, my sister in law takes the cake. Because she had a fibroid so large that they essentially delivered it along with Connor during the procedure. It was larger than a hockey puck, and the doctor had never seen one that big before. She actually had my brother take a picture of it (and being of that sense of humor, he happily obliged).
It wasn't all smiles over the previous nine months, however. At various times the doctors thought that they might lose the baby because the fibroids pregnancy was so severe. She had specialists from all over the northeast part of the united states come and examine her (which she jokes about now, but at the time was pretty uncomfortable. Something about being in the stirrups and having a dozen strangers looking at one's nether bits was just a bit more than she, or anyone really, wanted to go through during a pregnancy). They blasted her with x-rays, debated endlessly over how to treat the fibroids, and basically treated her like she was the greatest science experiment they had ever seen.
This isn't to criticize the doctors that worked on her. Fact is, their interest - even if it comes off as cold - is a damn good thing. They're trained professionals, men and women who have helped decrease the infant mortality rate to unheard of depths, and she was lucky to have them all there. But, as my sister in law said, it is a rather dehumanizing situation. Even if it was all for the best.
Anyway, they had trouble even identifying the fibroids pregnancy in the first place, and it was only a very astute and experienced x-ray technician who first caught it. Because the thing is, fibroids don't actually show up on x-rays or ultrasounds. So what the technician saw was an empty space where there wasn't necessarily supposed to be an empty space. It's not the kind of thing you'd notice unless you had years of experience working on pregnant women, and - again - it was lucky for brother's family that this technician just so happened to fit the mold.