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My doctor suspected I had endo. I had all the classic symptoms. I had a laparoscopy done to look and to also remove a fibroid and a dermoid cyst. The doctor found very little evidence of endo but did do some small cauterizations. My cyst and fibroid were removed.

After the initial bleeding from the laparoscopy, my symptoms resolved. I used to get breakthrough bleeding and horrible cramps even while I was taking my hormonal BCPs without a break. So I shouldn't have been having a period. It has been about 3 months since my lap and I've had no symptoms. Doctor says it could have been caused by a combination of all three things.

As far as the actual lap surgery. Well, it was a bit painful. You don't realize how truly often you engage your stomach muscles so I was pretty tender afterwards. But the incision sites were no more tender than any other previous surgery. Now, during the lap, they put some kind of gas into your abdominal cavity to better visualize the organs. It's very common to feel the gas pain in your shoulders and chest. So my chest was really hurting. That stuff is what caused the vast majority of my pain. The thing about the gas is that you just have to wait for it to dissipate on its own. They say moving around helps as does elevating the pelvis but those were a bit hard given the incisions and discomfort there. It took about 4 days for the gas pain to resolve. I was on narcotic pain meds for those 4 days and then switched to Tylenol (can't take NSAIDs but the doctor prescribed 800mg Naproxen if I could have taken it). Once the gas passed, it really wasn't bad. I just felt like I needed to be careful in the way I moved.

I was off work indefinitely for completely unrelated reasons, so there was no hurry in my recovery. I got my normal energy level back after about 2 weeks. If I had needed to go back to work, the doctor had said he would have written me off for a week. I was told I could resume normal exercise after the 2 weeks. I do yoga and pilates so I wasn't comfortable doing all that stretching and core work until after 4-5 weeks post surgical.

I don't know about TTC since endo wasn't a huge issue for me, but in my research I saw that endo can cause fertility issues. There are some medications you can take to lessen the symptoms. Not sure how that plays into TTC.

Sorry I wrote you a novel. Hope it helps! Feel better and baby dust when TTC.

I have endo as well. I was diagnosed after several BCPs did nothing to regular my heavy, long, awful periods. I had a ton of pain with them. I do know you can have it and not have heavy periods though! One of my other telltale symptoms was GI issues, especially around the time of my period. I was going to schedule a lap after I wrapped my head around the diagnosis, but surprise! We got pregnant with our miracle baby who will be here in about 5 weeks. My dr thought my tissue buildup was too heavy to conceive naturally pre-lap. We will probably space baby #1 and baby #2 fairly close together so I don't risk excess tissue building up in between making conceiving #2 harder. I am confident you will get your baby either way - lap or not! Several of my friends have had the lap done and TTC'ed successfully shortly after.

@grizz: wow, I knew you're due soon, but I didn't realize you had endo! That's fantastic that you got a miracle baby. It gives us all hope, too

My major symptom was severe mid-cycle cramping, always in the lower right abdomen and lasting for about 2-3 days. I was still on BCP when diagnosed and my periods were long (5-7 days) but light, and not very painful. Another symptom I had was pain during intercourse, which turned out to be a recto-vaginal cyst (sorry if this is tmi). The doctor suspected endo based on these two symptoms and an internal exam, I then had lap surgery which confirmed it. It can compromise fertility when it's more advanced and also depending on the location of the tissue and/or cysts, but it doesn't have to! I had to have all the excess tissue and cysts (I had 2) removed but recovery went well and now it's exactly one year after that surgery and I'm 6 months pregnant!
I hope your pain subsides soon! I found that changing my diet helped with the pain (you can search endo diet, basically it's eating less animal products because they can have high levels of estrogen). I wish you all the best, I know I was very scared and confused at first but it got better once I knew where I stood and we had a treatment plan! Hang in there!

Hi. I have been diagnosed with endometriosis (no lap but ultrasound showed stuck ovary). I had digestive issues with period (classic sign), as well as cramping. Unfortunately, it has interfered with TTC. We have been trying for over a year and a half with several failed IUIs and one failed IVF. But as you can see from other's posts, many with endo don't have problems at all! If you have endo, I am hoping you are one of them.

@mrs. 64: Amen to that, sister