Hi friends.
As I approach my two-year cancerversary, which is Monday, I have some news to share. Don’t worry – I remain cancer free!
As some of you may know, when I was diagnosed in September 2015, Julian and I had been planning to begin trying to expand our family the following summer. I would love to have a girl baby, but would equally love another boy – I just have a gut feeling that our family is not complete yet, that we are supposed to be a quintet.
I, like most other people, was not aware of the effect chemotherapy can have on a woman’s reproductive system, both during and after treatment, until I was diagnosed. That is when I discovered the cold, hard facts about the possible infertility chemotherapy can cause. Still, when my oncologist offered to refer me to a fertility specialist, I declined. Why? Many reasons. Specifically, I already had two beautiful children; I thought “seeing a fertility specialist” meant “freezing my eggs,” which frankly sounded like an awful procedure; and most importantly, I didn’t think infertility would happen to me.
Ridiculous, right? I was diagnosed with cancer at 37; the January before, I learned I’d had gall disease since I was a teenager. Why did I think anything that could happen wouldn’t happen to me? Maybe it’s because of those very things. Like, “Omg I have cancer as a 37 year old vegetarian who managed to bear two kids with only one fallopian tube. Of COURSE I’ll retain my fertility.” In addition, my oncologist put me on Lupron during chemo – a horrid drug that stops your ovaries from working, sending you directly into menopause, but has been shown to “sometimes” prevent infertility. How they determine that, I don’t know, since from what I have heard it’s basically a craps shoot whether you get your period back or not. But that’s not really the point.
Looking back, I wish I’d seen that fertility specialist. I wish I’d gotten all the information available to me. I wish my oncologist – who I love, don’t get me wrong – had said, “If you ever think you ever might possibly want to have another baby, just go see what the specialist has to say.” Because now I know there are other ways of preserving fertility – I read yesterday about a simple procedure where one ovary is removed and frozen, and then the outer layer – where the eggs are stored – is grafted back on to the remaining ovary, restoring fertility. Would I have done that? Yes. If I had a time machine, I’d go back and do it now. But alas, I was in denial. I thought I knew all the risks. I was both right and wrong.
Tired of my oncologist and my gyno both telling me I just had to “wait and see” what my body would do, I finally made an appointment at Seattle Reproductive Medicine (you know, like I should have done two years ago). A trans-vaginal ultrasound revealed my ovaries to be so small they were nearly undetectable. My uterus, while healthy, is a menopausal uterus – small, with a very thin tissue lining. A blood test measuring AMH came back so low that the doctor prefaced the result by telling J and I that it “couldn’t tell you the difference between low egg supply and zero,” but that mine was at the very lowest limit. She went on to tell me that’s not to say I couldn’t ever conceive, but the possibility is “remote.”
Why did “remote” hit me like a bucket of cold water? Low, small, even a percentage number – those I think I could have handled. But “remote” – remote is the snowy woodland where someone freezes to death because she lost her way hiking. Remote is where they used to send the very worst criminals to live and kill each other. Remote is so small it can’t even be quantified. Remote is not impossible, but it’s impossible’s next of kin.
I had previously asked J about adoption – which for some reason, he is not interested in – and between the ultrasound and the blood test I had even had a revelation that perhaps we could get an egg donor and a surrogate and have a baby that is at least a half sibling to our boys. So I had done a small amount of research into that, but even so – even so, I was hoping against hope they’d tell me my egg supply was lowered, but not – not that my chances were “remote.” I’ll be 40 next year – “remote” was already around the corner anyhow.
This was on Tuesday. I cried. A lot. I felt stupid, greedy, uninformed, angry, regretful, ungrateful, lost. For the last two days I have been processing. It’s still not real to me, if you can believe that – somehow, in my stubborn brain, remote is not far enough. I still feel this glimmer of hope. But my logical brain keeps trying to put that glimmer in check. And so I am struggling.
I haven’t told you everything yet, though. And I’m not sure if I should put it down, because we don’t know where we are with it. So take it as that, information, not opinion or decision. Just information we were given from a doctor, information that I will present to my oncologist at my regular appointment on Monday and ask his opinion of.
If they were to give me low levels of estrogen and progesterone – very low, the same my body would be making itself had my period come back – my uterus would rebound and begin working again as though my ovaries had not given up the ghost. Then, if we wanted, we could choose an egg donor, and I could actually carry the baby myself, nurse it myself. Genetically it would not be mine, but who’s to say how much DNA a baby picks up in the womb? Whose blood would be running through its veins? Whose heartbeat would it hear? Whose milk would it drink?
If you are by chance reading this, and you have been diagnosed, and you have not started treatment – even if you have children, even if you think you are done, even if you aren’t sure you ever want them – please go see a fertility specialist. Seeing them will do no harm. Know ALL your options. Regret is a horrible feeling to have after you’ve managed to survive a brush with death.
complikated 