I had three laps, removed some nerves to the affected areas, lasered off implants and all that by the time I was nineteen.

I had been on every hormone therapy to stop my periods and I was taking over two dozen different pills a day.

I got a bleeding ulcer and they had to take my pain medications away.

I threw up all the time from side effects and any real stress brought on periods and seemed to demolish my immune system too. I had serious kidney infections and pneumonia as well.

I couldn't finish a single semester of high school after my sophomore year and I napped every single day in the nurses office.

I collapsed after the senior assembly and had to be wheeled out.

At twenty-one, I was reasonable stable on my seven different meds and had not had a period for almost two years. But, I still had breakthrough bleeding and eventually that wore away my entire uterine lining and I hemorrhaged.

I went on another hormone therapy to rebuild the lining. My gyn said that I would probably periodically end up going through this cycle of wearing away the lining and having to rebuild it.

I said no to that future. I explain that even if I chose to have children while so ill, I would worry that once they were born I would be too ill to be a good mother. I might also be too ill to be a good spouse and the stress of caring for an ill wife and children would probably destroy any marriage, no matter how loving.

He agreed that it sounded like a bleak future and I had a hysterectomy two months later.

My advice is not to dispute whether you want kids. Explain that you do not want kids AND endo. Endo means no kids. No endo opens up possibilities. You can always have some eggs frozen before the procedure. Or explain that you would worry about passing down bad genes and that you plan to adopt if you decide to have kids.

It is anecdotal, but it sure worked for me. While I was recovering from surgery, several nurses said was the youngest hysterectomy patient they had ever seen/heard of in that hospital.