Hi everyone! I thought I'd leave my story here, as this site really helped get me through the last few nervous days leading up to the surgery.

Basically, I thought I had 4 fibroids and a polyp going into the surgery, but it turns out the doctor took out about 8. The biggest one was 6cm, while the others were 2-4cm and less.

The whole experience turned out to be fine-- the surgery lasted about an hour and by an hour after that I was up in my room, awake and chatting with my husband. I was fortunate that my incision was not that big, so my healing has been remarkably fast. I'm at the two week mark tomorrow, and hardly have any discomfort, have driven already, and walked around a country fair for 4 hours yesterday. That said, every surgery is different and for some people, walking around for hours on end would land them back in the hospital, so definitely be careful! I'm still not lifting anything heavier than a gallon of milk.

I don't know if anyone's ever shared these tips, but here are some I can think of:

-Before surgery, ask the doctor who'll be doing it whether you'll be sewn up layer-by-layer. Apparently, a lot of people these days sew the bottom layer and the top layer and leave the middle ones to fuse themselves. This'll make for more pain and longer healing times and possible internal scarring, from what I understand.

-Try to be as fit as possible before the surgery. Strong abs and back muscles will come in handy soon!

-The nurses and doctors are right when they tell you to walk around ASAP. I walked the morning after the surgery and actually found that once I was up, it wasn't that painful. Things that WERE painful: Getting up from bed, trying to go to the bathroom, coughing, sneezing, laughing- yeouch!!

-Sleep as flat as possible. I don't know if it makes a difference, but I put the hospital bed flat, so that my stomach muscles could get used to healing while my body is straight, not bent over either in bed or standing.

-After you get home, stay on a simple, soft diet for a while- eggs, oatmeal, jello, soup. Reintroduce meats slowly. I also stayed off carbonated drinks for more than a week. My digestive system kicked into gear only on day 3 (the first morning I was home, and after I'd eaten some chicken and rice and spinach the night before).

-Be prepared to be tired! At the hospital, they'll wake you up every 2 hours to take your vital signs. Once you're home, nap whenever you feel like it. For me, breakfast would make me drowsy and nap for 2 hours, but after lunch I'd be fine to stay awake until bedtime. Weird!

-Discharges: Being the idiot I am, I didn't consider that there would be something like a mini-period after this. What's more mysterious is I've also had a week of a whole lot of cervical mucus too. I'll be asking the nurse about this at my next post-op appointment. It seems to have gone away only today (day 13 post-op).

-Despite taking 8 fibroids out of me, I'm neither thinner nor fatter. Probably my stomach is a tiny bit flatter than before the surgery, but it's hard to tell. I don't have any kind of muffin top or grapefruit-sized crater, so I guess that's good.

I'm now at the stage of wondering how big my scar is (it's under steri-strips right now), and whether it will fade with time. It's low enough that it doesn't really matter, but I'm curious. Guess I'll stock up on Mederma and see what it does.

All in all, I'm really glad I've done this, despite that first difficult week of recovery. My doctor thinks my uterus is in great shape now, so we'll see how it heals up from here. Good luck to everyone! :-)