NSW woman speaks of shock diagnosis after losing six babies
A woman from NSW has bravely spoken out about her struggles with fertility and her shock diagnosis after an ectopic pregnancy.
Over the past three years Keira Rumble has lost six pregnancies, four of which were miscarriages and one of which was a heterotopic pregnancy, a dual pregnancy which is rare and potentially life threatening condition which can sometimes be overlooked.
The heterotopic pregnancy resulted in a miscarriage for Ms Rumble, but before that she says her pain was being dismissed by doctors.
With the ectopic pregnancy, where the egg is fertilised outside the uterus, Ms Rumble had experienced internal bleeding.
Following the discovery of the ectopic pregnancy, she endured months of swelling and chronic pain in her abdomen which left her bedridden, before she underwent another surgery.
It was then doctors diagnosed her with endometriosis.
“They found endo everywhere,” Ms Rumble told 7News.
“Like over my bowel, my uterus ... my ovaries. It had riddled me.”
“Endometriosis is a common disease in which the tissue that is similar to the lining of the womb grows outside it in other parts of the body,” Endometriosis Australia explains.
The organisation says more than 10 per cent of Australians suffer from the disease at some point during their life, or roughly 830,000 people.
Due to symptoms varying, it is possible some may go seven to 12 years without a diagnosis.
Ms Rumble said she was fortunate to experience the pain for just 18 months, and said she had none of the common symptoms.
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“There are a lot of women that go in there and they’ve never had anything gynaecologically wrong with them and the doctors say, ‘Oh, it’s period pain, it’s normal’,” she said.
Ms Rumble, the CEO of Krumbled Foods, is no stranger to sharing her health struggles publicly, she has a following of nearly 400,000 on Instagram and has spoken about her fertility issues on a number of occasions before.
“I felt so alone during each and every one of my losses and felt deeply ashamed with myself for what was going on with my body. I had no answers and was embarrassed to ask for help,” Ms Rumble wrote for Body and Soul earlier this year.
“It wasn’t until after my pregnancy losses that I started to seek answers and find a community to help me get through what I was going through.”
Ms Rumble explained to 7News she has found comfort in a community where women speak about topics such as miscarriages or endometriosis, taboos which are not spoken about enough.
Now, Ms Rumble and her partner are trying IVF.
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