Things you can do to prepare yourself for the prospect of surgery that I found helpful

* Meditate on it -- I walked a labrinth, a type of meditational maze, and thought about my fibroid. After a while I was able to work through what I was afraid of and see that I was going to be okay. It was pretty amazing for me.

* Read Prepare for Surgery, Heal Faster -- this book is very soothing and helps you see how to look at the surgery and put yourself in a good mental space for healing. I wish I would have read it sooner.

* Watch a webclip of the surgery being performed -- this alleviates a lot of stress about this unknown. You can also read about it in What Your Doctor May Not Tell You About Fibroids

* See what the scar looks like. I posted photos after my surgery to my blog and to the NUFF board and people have written back how helpful it was for them to see. This is my first post after my surgery to my blog, you can see more in the archives before and after that date -- about my decision-making to have the surgery and the healing afterwards.

Those are my best suggestions. The only other thing I might add is that you aren't the only one to have those conflicted feelings. It's our uterus and we're trying to have a baby -- having surgery on that part seems to be in total conflict with having a baby. But, as many of us here have seen, fibroids can also equally be damaging to our plans for babies, and if having them out will help us to get our babies than so be it. In 18 months of being on the NUFF board where there are thousands of members, I only recall one woman having a hyst and she had a cancerous tumor -- which isn't what you have. Everyone else still has theirs and more and more are having babies and getting pregnant all the time.