On August 24, PEOPLE magazine published an interview with Bindi Irwin (daughter of Steve Irwin) as part of this week’s cover story and she talked about her scary battle with endometriosis and how lucky she and her husband, Chandler Powell, feel to have their adorable 2-year-old daughter, Grace Warrior.
“For us personally, we feel so lucky to have Grace. I think that every day I wake up and I look at our beautiful daughter and think she is our tiny little miracle and it makes me cry because we were very, very lucky to have her,” Bindi says of her daughter – adding that they weren’t guaranteed to have a child.
In March, Bindi was diagnosed with endometriosis after 10 years of unexplained pain. She went from one doctor to the next in hopes of receiving an answer and solution for her pain, but no one could figure out what was wrong with her. She was about ready to stop searching for answers, but decided to keep going.
Once diagnosed with endometriosis, Bindi Irwin underwent surgery and what they found was quite alarming – 37 lesions and a chocolate cyst. Doctors were flabbergasted at how she was able to endure so much pain for so long, but she credited her friends and family for helping her stay strong and resilient.
“It’s so hard because you feel like it’s inescapable,” she said in her interview with PEOPLE. “You don’t know what’s wrong with you, and then when people tell you ‘It’s all in your head’ or ‘you’re hormonal’ or ‘just have a cup of tea, lay down,’ you end up feeling so desperately alone because there’s no answers.”
According to the World Health Organization (WHO), endometriosis is a ‘disease in which tissue similar to the lining of the uterus grows outside the uterus.’ It affects roughly 10% (190 million) of reproductive-age women globally, often causing a severe amount of pain and making it harder to become pregnant.
It took her 10 years, but she finally received the answers she had been looking for and already feels like a shell of her former self – in all the right ways. “And I can officially say that I’m finally feeling better, which is really extraordinary and something that I actually never thought that I would say,” she said back in May.
In her recent interview with PEOPLE, Bindi Irwin urged others to stop asking women when they’re going to have another child. She describes it as a ‘universal question’ that can be hurtful to some women because you never really know what someone is going through or fighting through behind closed doors.
“And someone asking you, ‘Why aren’t you having more children? It’s your responsibility to have more children.’ It breaks your heart because we all have a different journey and a different story,” she explains to PEOPLE. And I wish more people would pause before asking, ‘Why aren’t you having more children?’”
She shared a similar sentiment back in March, when she first shared her diagnosis. “Please be gentle & pause before asking me (or any woman) when we’ll be having more children,” she said. “Things may look fine on the outside looking in through the window of someone’s life, however, that is not always the case,”
For now, Bindi Irwin and Chandler Powell are blessed to have their adorable little miracle, Grace Warrior, and she’s pouring every ounce of love, energy, and effort into making sure her daughter is given the best life possible. And for the record, can we marvel at the fact that Grace is already two-and-a-half years old!
