The Real Housewives of Atlanta star Porsha Williams opened up for the first time about having to undergo an emergency hysterectomy.
“I found out I had fibroids the same day I found out I was pregnant. I was 30, trying for my first child, and dealing with fertility issues that had landed me with a specialist,” Williams, 45, who shares her 7-year-old daughter, Pilar Jhena McKinley, with ex Dennis McKinley, wrote in an essay for Glamour published Friday, September 18. “The fibroid outgrew that pregnancy, and I ended up having a miscarriage at four months.”
Williams recalled struggling with fibroids in the years that followed, adding, “I had a myomectomy a year later, but they grew back while I was pregnant with my daughter, Pilar. She outgrew the large one that returned, fighting through it, which is why she’s my rainbow baby. During my last month of pregnancy, I was on bed rest while the fibroids degenerated. It was painful, but I was so thankful my little miracle baby pushed through.”
After Williams gave birth to Pilar, the fibroids “came back with a vengeance.”
“I got fibroid embolization, hoping to preserve my fertility, since I didn’t know yet if I wanted more kids and wasn’t ready to have that choice made for me. It seemed to work,” she recalled. “Then my divorce [from Simon Guobadia] hit, and with it came stress I hadn’t planned for.”
Williams ultimately went to a fibroid specialist who confirmed her fibroids were back. “She called with the results: a little over 15 large fibroids in my uterus, plus endometriosis and another diagnosis involving the uterine lining,” the reality star recalled. “As we sat in her office, she told me I needed a hysterectomy.”
Amid the health scare, Williams found out she would keep her ovaries and lose her uterus.
“During the surgery, they found 21 fibroids total. The largest was the size of a cantaloupe,” she recalled. “I woke up after the surgery and thought, ‘A part of me is gone.’ Fibroids aren’t something we usually talk about as women, and neither are hysterectomies. There’s a stigma to it, as if you’re somehow less of a woman without your uterus.”
Williams struggled with the decision to have lifesaving surgery at the expense of her fertility.
“I didn’t have a choice about the hysterectomy, but it saved my life. My quality of life has improved 100 percent since,” she continued. “I hadn’t realized the fibroids were behind my migraines, my low iron levels, or how stressed my body had been just from everyday life. I’d also lost my ability to have sex, since the fibroids had grown large enough to close off more than 60 percent of my birth canal, and put my bladder at risk from their sheer weight.”
Williams concluded: “Now I take snapshots of every single moment with my daughter. I’m even more present, more grateful, because when I look at her, I see a true miracle. I’ve always called her my lifesaver, since she gave me my purpose, and now that feels even more true. I really was chosen to be her mom.”
