Baby Love

One of the first things I thought to myself when learning that I would have to undergo chemotherapy was, “Will I ever be able to have kids?” Matt and I had been married just over a year when I got my diagnosis and kids were certainly not in our plans for quite some time. It’s funny how cancer makes you totally reevaluate everything going on in your life. We were now faced with some pretty serious choices and had to make some equally as big decisions about our future.

In a previous post I mentioned the barrage of doctors appointments I had the two weeks after I got the cancer call. One of those appointments was with a fertility doctor at UCSF, Dr. Mitch Rosen. Matt and I went to the appointment together, this was obviously going to be a team decision. To freeze eggs or not? At our appointment with Dr. Rosen we learned SO much about ovaries & the female reproductive system. It was incredible to watch him talk about ovaries and how they function. He admitted very early on in our appointment that he thought they were the most fascinating organ in the human body. This man is passionate about what he does and I instantly felt at ease talking to him. He drew us pictures and explained the lifecycle of an egg to us without leaving out even a tiny detail. Did you know that women are born with all the eggs they’ll ever have while men continue to produce sperm their whole lives? It’s about 1-2 million eggs total. During each cycle your ovaries are working on anywhere from 5-15 eggs and then there’s that one that makes it to maturity in hopes of finding a sperm and getting fertilized. The rest of those that didn’t make it to maturity just die off and the process starts all over again. Ovaries are hard working little gals.

Part of my appointment consisted of getting a pelvic ultra sound to see how many potential eggs could be harvested if we chose to move down the path of cryopreservation. I could see the screen the entire time and Dr. Rosen pointed out all my potential little eggs to us. I had 11 but we rounded down to 10 just to be safe. He said this was a totally normal number for my age. If we decided to move forward with harvesting all those eggs, I was going to give myself hormone shots every day for 10 days in hopes of getting all 10 of those to mature. He rounded that number down to 8. At the end of the 10 days, Dr. Rosen would harvest all those eggs & we would choose whether or not we wanted to keep them as eggs or fertilize them and make them embryos. If we got 8 of them to mature, let’s say 5 or 6 of them are actually viable. That means I would have two shots at IVF & a 30-40% chance that one of them sticks and I end up pregnant.

Cryopreservation wasn’t the only way to preserve my fertility offered that day. We also talked about a drug called Lupron that is given once a month & essentially puts your ovaries in a medically induced coma for the duration of chemotherapy. Chemo attacks rapidly splitting cells since that’s how cancer acts. Ovaries also look like that to chemo since they’re constantly moving so it can damage them in the process of killing cancer. When Lupron puts the ovaries on pause, the chemo is less likely to permanently damage them, thus protecting future little eggs.

Matt and I walked out of that appointment with more information than we knew what to do with and we only had about 48 hours to make a decision. If we chose cryopreservation, my treatment would be delayed by about 2-3 weeks. My doctors were all ok delaying my treatment that long but only if we were seeking fertility treatments. In the end, we chose not to move forward with the cryopreservation. Something in the back of my mind just kept telling me it wasn’t the right choice for us. Matt and I sat down and weighed out all the pros & cons, this was not a decision we made lightly. I am getting the Lupron shots and there is a chance my body may never come out of this menopausal state it’s been put in. Dr. Rosen gave me an 80% chance that my periods will come back and a 50/50 chance of getting pregnant naturally after treatment. Matt and I are were ok with those odds. I’ve always liked to gamble. If you don’t like to gamble, I dare you to walk by a Wheel of Fortune slot machine in Vegas as it yells out, "WHEEL. OF. FORTUNE!" and not put $20 in it. It will draw you in and you’ll be a convert. Anyway … he did say that I will have eggs left once this is all over so if we do ever decide that we want to try IVF in the future, that would be an option.

Yes, all this will affect my fertility. Let’s say I’m 37 and we decide we want to have a baby. If a normal 37 year old has a 30% chance of being infertile, just because of her age, mine would be more like 45%. This brings up the question though … do we even want kids? Maybe? Or maybe we’ll just keep getting pets until we have enough for a whole farm! When fertility wasn’t an issue for us, I always assumed we’d have a couple rugrats at some point. But like I mentioned earlier, cancer really makes you reevaluate everything going on in your life.

Right now I’m focused on killing this tumor that has invaded my left boob. I’m doing a bang up job at it, too. I’ll give the chemo and other meds a little credit but mostly, it’s me. :) Round three was a week ago and I’m feeling ok! My side effects weren’t crazy bad this time around and I should now be moving into my two good weeks before the next treatment. Matt and I are headed to Folsom this weekend to visit Jason, Molly & Julian and to help them unpack in their new home! I can’t wait to snuggle my perfect nephew. A little dose of Julian Diebel lovin’ is exactly the medicine I need right now.

Xo,

Ali