One of the things I was told on my day of diagnosis is that I’d be unable to have children for at least 5 years… That would make me 34 years old minimum by the time I could safely conceive.

Pre-diagnosis. Waiting for a mammogram immediately after my imaging.

Among all the other heavy stuff thrown our way that day (including putting our family dog Kirby down), I now had to decide whether or not I wanted to proactively work on saving my ‘opportunities’ to become a mom one day (by means of bearing my own children). I had 4 days to decide since the following Tuesday they booked me for a consultation at a fertility treatment downtown Vancouver right away.

Choosing the fertility options would put a hold on starting my chemotherapy so things had to move quickly. Because of the size of my tumour and how far along I already was… I was already anxious to start…

It was a lot to tell Matt over the phone too that day…

- I have cancer
- I’ll lose my breast (possibly both, possibly more of me)
- I’ll be bald in just a month or so time
- We won’t be able to have children until our mid-late 30s if we so choose

It was like dropping a bomb of information on someone and he took it like a champ.

Before my appointment that morning (I went with both my parents), I chatted with Matt in length about our future.

I speak for us and us only, but I’m very… (and no offence to anyone— I want to be careful with my words here) glad and fortunate we don’t have children to care for at this stage in our lives. I think the way our relationship timeline has panned out is the way it’s supposed to be for us.

Matt and I were never 100% on having our own children. We talked about it. I have names picked out. I have a Pinterest board full of baby ideas. I can picture us being great parents. But I never felt as though I had that motherly ‘spark’, if you will, and Matt feels the same way as being a father.

We decided in the end that there would be no harm in talking about it, so as much as it pained my parents to hear my thoughts on the matter— I think they knew what my decision would be regardless, drove me to the appointment as my support.

I wanted to be open minded, to hear the options, to get the doctor’s opinion. Matt had ultimately left it up to me to decide. My parents offered to help out financially depending on my choice (which is so kind…)

I went in and filled in paperwork. Waited and happened to get in a little early, which was nice. Even though I’m 29 now I still feel so young at heart and felt a little out of place (what am I doing here? How did my life come to this? I didn’t expect this. Why isn’t Matt with me? Would I even be a good mom?)

I went in to speak with the doctor with just my mother while Dad sat in the waiting room.

Basically her options were as followed:

- Freeze my eggs
- Have Matt visit and create embryos to freeze (I would only be able to bear his children if I were to do this later on, unless of course, my eggs withhold chemo and I can do things naturally later down the road but there’s no way to know for sure right now)
- Get on medication to keep my uterus and ‘lady bits’ as ‘healthy and optimal as possible throughout chemo’
- Surrogacy
- Adoption
- Do nothing

She told me my chances of getting pregnant with freezing my eggs, and by using frozen embryos. At my age she estimated about a 72% success rate (if I remember correctly). Nothing is for certain, of course.

Normally this would cost about $15,000+ dollars (possibly more depending how long you need to keep your eggs frozen for) but for cancer patients the cost is greatly reduced to just about $5,000 (again, how amazing— I didn’t know that!)

The doctor suggested to me (“if you were my daughter…”) that if I don’t freeze eggs, to take the medication. It would be a needle I inserted into my stomach area 1-2 times a month I believe she said and would have to be paid for on my own.

I opted for ‘do nothing’.

No photos from the fertility clinic. These are pre-diagnosis selfies of me waiting for a mammogram. I knew something was wrong…

I did, however, get an ultrasound and bloodwork done after our chat just to see how my current egg count looked like. She told me mine was average if not a bit above average and that potentially after this cancer journey, I could bear children just fine naturally. Which left me feeling content.

I would leave this up to fate. We aren’t 100% on becoming parents. I am not sure of my cancer journey. So here I am, choosing to potentially give up this part of me as a woman. And I’m okay with it.

The day after we realized Matt’s benefits would cover nearly 100% of this treatment (but we are confident in our choice and that’s that!) I don’t want to wait to get rid of this cancer. I don’t want to set myself up to be a mom if in the end I can’t be there to be a mom. There were just too many unknowns. I know that’s not what some of my family want to hear. I know that’s not what everyone would choose. I hope people don’t assume this was incredibly “easy” for me to decide. But this is part of my journey and this is my choice (Matt’s too!)

To all you mothers out there (adoptive, surrogates, moms who bear their own children, whatever)— you’re rock stars. Cancer or not, if you’re a mom and you’re doing your best to juggle all the chaos of life, I commend you! I would love to chat with you too on your own experiences with fertility treatments, being a mom with cancer, trying to get pregnant after beating cancer, etc… please send me an email as I’d love to chat or at least be an ear for you!

Thanks for reading! XO