The first time I heard the phrase ‘Asherman’s syndrome’ was in 2023. I was several years into my fertility journey; my husband Paul [Fisher, the DJ] I had started actively trying for a baby as soon as we got married at the start of 2020.
In the time since then, I had experienced four miscarriages and done eight rounds of IVF. I told my LA fertility doctor that I wasn’t going to do another embryo transfer until I knew why I was losing my pregnancies. I wanted the doctor to take a serious look at my uterus, because I thought we could find the answers there.
I knew something was wrong – I could feel it in my body – and I needed the doctor to listen to me.
When the doctor performed a laparoscopy, they found scar tissue – so much scar tissue, too much scar tissue – in my uterus. By that point, I’d had four D&Cs after my miscarriages, and the resultant scarring was significant.
The doctor came up with a hypothesis. They suggested I was losing my babies before nine weeks because they would grow to a certain point before the scar tissue stopped the blood flow to the embryo and prevented it from growing further.
‘This condition is called Asherman’s syndrome,’ the doctor explained. ‘It’s when scar tissue builds up inside your uterus and reduces the space in there – like the walls of a room getting thicker, making the space inside smaller.’
Hearing those two words – Asherman’s syndrome – filled me with unexpected anger. I was pissed. Not necessarily at the doctor, but at the situation.
If the scar tissue was the reason behind my miscarriages, why hadn’t it been picked up sooner? I had done every test under the sun. I had taken every medication recommended. I had been poked and prodded and scanned by countless doctors. Why was I only now hearing of Asherman’s syndrome?
There isn’t a lot of research into the prevalence of Asherman’s, but it is estimated that only one to five people in every 10,000 experience it. I was one of them.
I was told I needed surgery, and recommended a doctor named Dr Camran Nezhat, who specialises in Asherman’s cases. He was based in San Francisco. The surgery was invasive and expensive.
I justified the price by telling myself it was an investment into our future. I knew it was an investment we could only afford to make once.
In San Francisco, Dr Nezhat greeted me with a dazzling smile and told me all the things I wanted to hear: “Don’t worry, once I’m done with you, you’re going to have a baby.”
I held onto those words when I woke up from the operation in agony. I felt like I had been hit by a truck. No, not a truck, a road train.
I was still in pain when I met with Dr Nezhat five days later. He told me how bad my Asherman’s syndrome had been. “This was a severe case,” he said, explaining that my scar tissue was especially thick because of my history of endometriosis, D&Cs and hysteroscopies. “The adhesions weren’t just in your uterus, but also inside your abdomen. Everything was very, very scarred.”
With the scar tissue removed, I was hopeful that I would be able to carry a baby to term. That hope was railroaded when I saw my LA fertility doctor a few weeks later. As they assessed me, they said I would need to have the surgery again to make sure it worked.
That wasn’t going to happen. I wasn’t going to have the surgery again; I couldn’t endure it.
The doctor told me I only had two options: have the surgery again or try surrogacy. “Don’t try and fall pregnant again, because if you do, you will miscarry,” they said.
It was all too much. I stepped away from the IVF rollercoaster, and I started seriously looking into surrogacy. I researched the process, the legal side, support and options. I called a friend who had used a surrogate and asked her a hundred questions.
Within a few months, we had found a surrogate and were about to sign a contract. But first, Paul and I went on a very belated honeymoon to the Maldives. The trip was exactly what we both needed. It rained a lot of the time we were there, which forced us both to really slow down and stop.
The day after I got back to Australia, I found out I had naturally fallen pregnant on our honeymoon.
I was overjoyed. And fucking terrified. The LA doctor’s parting words replayed in my head: “Don’t try and fall pregnant again, because if you do, you will one hundred per cent miscarry.”
I’d never wanted anyone to be wrong more than them.
Spoiler alert: they were wrong. Our beautiful baby girl, Bobbi Maree Fisher, was born in June 2024. She had her dad’s blue eyes and her mum’s olive skin. She was the baby I had prayed for and dreamed about. She defied the odds and proved the doctor wrong.
Bobbi was destined to be.
It was always her.
‘Always You’ by Chloe Fisher with Alley Pascoe (Hachette) is out now.
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