Nervous for the robot!

I just scheduled my hysterectomy and my dr recommends the Di Vinci robot. I'm a little nervous about robot arms being inside of me and finding the right places to cut! I have two large fibroids in my uterus and I wonder, will they cut with the robot arms through the tiny holes but remove it vaginally?
Thanks!

Look on You Tube for videos that'll show exactly how it's done - pretty cool - might even have some videos on this site too.

I had DvH Friday. I have 4 holes in my stomach and one in my belly button (poor thing, this is the third time it's been jabbed). For me, nothing came out vaginally, it was cut and removed through the incisions in my stomach. I agree with watching videos. The entire thing is really neat! Good luck!

Everything was removed vaginally for me. My doctor had an ultrasound and CAT scan done beforehand, so that he would have a good idea if everything would safely fit through. They did and the surgery was a success.

I hope you have a great outcome and very quick recovery. Try not to be too nervous. The robot is amazing. I feel very lucky that there was one at our hospital.

I have four incisions total and everything came out vaginally .... I'm not sure why some doctors do the surgery vaginally and others take it out though one of the ports.....

The robotic platform is just a tool- an extremely cool tool capable of offering an astonishing degree of precision to the surgeon.
The surgeon is the one doing the surgery, finding the right spots and doing the cutting.
Check out YouTube for the videos of the DaVinci system being used to do things like peel grapes and fold origami cranes- cranes so small they can sit on a dime without obscuring the face. This platform can allow a surgeon to do things that the human hand simply can't do.
I have 5 tiny incisions, no belly button incision, thank goodness- I have a deep navel and would have almost certainly had troubles with that.
In my case, the uterus and fallopian tubes were delivered vaginally but each case is different and exact technique varies with the surgeon and your specific body and issues. Ask your doc to walk you through exactly what will be done- you'll feel better as you become more familiar with the procedure.

Nothing came out vaginally for me. Everything was maserated and removed through a port in my side. Great results with that, but my fibroid was 14lbs. Total op time 6 hours. 3 for the cutting away and 3 for the maseration.

If I had to do it all over again, I wouldn't change a thing.

What actually goes inside and does the work are thin rods with the grips on the ends of them. There are some quality videos on You Tube that are helpful.

I had 4 holes as well and everything removed vaginally. My surgery took 4 hrs and I also had 2 pain blocks put in. I LOVED my pain blocks! I had those for 4 days post-op. I've only seen one other person on here to have them.

Good Luck with your surgery.

I had the DvH and I love, love, love the robot. I had 5 incisions 2 on each side of my abdomen and 1 above my belly button. My Dr likes to use the belly button for an incision site, but because my endometerios mass was over 14cm large, and was pushing against my abdominal wall, there wasn't enough room for her to use the belly button site and still work.

The Dr said it was one of the worst cases of endo that she had seen and 9 out of 10 other surgeons would have just ended up cutting me wide open once they saw how the growth grew around and attached to my kidneys, my bowels, my intestines, my bladder.... everywhere!!! I was in surgery over 5 hours! She had to be sure not to cut any of the nerves to my legs, and to find the vein that runs from my kidneys to the bladder and make sure she didn't cut that. The robot allowed for such dexterity and with the skill of my surgeon, all turned out great!!! I will sing her praises any day!!

I still have my cervix, I think that they take everything out vaginally, if you have your cervix removed. I didn't have it removed, so everything was sucked out of the surgical sites. I think that she used one in particular to remove everything, as I had a very, very very large bruise that honestly took two months to fully go away. But, honestly no - no pain at all... at all.

I was off of pain meds 3 days post op and have had absolutely no complaints at all!!!

Best wishes for your surgery!!!

In my case, it wasn't removed vaginally because my uterus was very enlarged (up to my belly button). So it was basically dissected and the pieces removed from the ports.