Pardon The Interruption
TMI Alert: I use words like period, ovary and menopause in the following post, so if you can't handle it, you might as well stop now.
All week last week I was anxiously anticipating the arrival of my period like some teenage girl who's afraid she might have gotten herself into a sticky situation. Never in my life has this been something I cared about, much less paid attention to. But now that these drugs that get pumped into my veins threaten to take away the opportunity for me to one day have children, I'm on red alert.
Let me tell you what I know, which isn't much. My first oncologist said there was about a 20% chance that I wouldn't be able to have kids after chemo. This number is based on all premenopausal women, so it includes women up to around 50-55. The closer you are to natural menopause, the greater your chances are of being pushed over the edge by chemo. Since in theory I'm about 20+ years from natural menopause, my chances are lower than that 20%. There is also the possibility that I'll take a temporary break, or "chemopause" and then resume normal function after chemo. I'm hoping to avoid this also since my thinking tells me that no break is better than a short one in terms of later fertility. So far, so good.
I had a few options for addressing this pre-chemo, but for a variety of reasons decided to take my chances. I could have frozen embryos, but this would have required that I find someone to fertilize them. The success rate for frozen eggs is much lower than frozen embryos. I did briefly have a short list of my male friends, taking into account intelligence, looks, etc., but figured that if any of them were meant to be the father of my children, I would have already figured that out. Plus how do you ask a friend for sperm? I know people have been offering to help, but I doubt that's what they had in mind. If I were already married, this is probably something I would have pursued. Also, the procedure to harvest and fertilize eggs isn't cheap and I don't think you can just store frozen embryos in your kitchen freezer. There is also some new technology that allows them to remove small portions of your ovaries, freeze them, then reinsert them at a later date once you're done with chemo and ready to reproduce. Again, I'm not made of money and the thought of one more surgery was more than I could bear. Insurance generally doesn't cover these procedures.
Doctors used to discourage women with breast cancer from getting pregnant. Now there are studies that show there is a protective effect that reduces the risk of recurrence in women who have had breast cancer and later get pregnant. This effect is the greatest when the pregnancy occurs around/after 24 months post-treatment.
I know you now know more than you ever wanted to about my fertility, but this has been one of the hardest parts of this disease for me, so it is something you should understand. It is a real issue for young women diagnosed with cancer and there isn't a lot of research or information that allows us to make informed, intelligent decisions. I guess I won't know until the time comes when I decide to get pregnant if I can or not, but until then I can hope that this isn't something else that is going to be taken away from me by cancer.
All week last week I was anxiously anticipating the arrival of my period like some teenage girl who's afraid she might have gotten herself into a sticky situation. Never in my life has this been something I cared about, much less paid attention to. But now that these drugs that get pumped into my veins threaten to take away the opportunity for me to one day have children, I'm on red alert.
Let me tell you what I know, which isn't much. My first oncologist said there was about a 20% chance that I wouldn't be able to have kids after chemo. This number is based on all premenopausal women, so it includes women up to around 50-55. The closer you are to natural menopause, the greater your chances are of being pushed over the edge by chemo. Since in theory I'm about 20+ years from natural menopause, my chances are lower than that 20%. There is also the possibility that I'll take a temporary break, or "chemopause" and then resume normal function after chemo. I'm hoping to avoid this also since my thinking tells me that no break is better than a short one in terms of later fertility. So far, so good.
I had a few options for addressing this pre-chemo, but for a variety of reasons decided to take my chances. I could have frozen embryos, but this would have required that I find someone to fertilize them. The success rate for frozen eggs is much lower than frozen embryos. I did briefly have a short list of my male friends, taking into account intelligence, looks, etc., but figured that if any of them were meant to be the father of my children, I would have already figured that out. Plus how do you ask a friend for sperm? I know people have been offering to help, but I doubt that's what they had in mind. If I were already married, this is probably something I would have pursued. Also, the procedure to harvest and fertilize eggs isn't cheap and I don't think you can just store frozen embryos in your kitchen freezer. There is also some new technology that allows them to remove small portions of your ovaries, freeze them, then reinsert them at a later date once you're done with chemo and ready to reproduce. Again, I'm not made of money and the thought of one more surgery was more than I could bear. Insurance generally doesn't cover these procedures.
Doctors used to discourage women with breast cancer from getting pregnant. Now there are studies that show there is a protective effect that reduces the risk of recurrence in women who have had breast cancer and later get pregnant. This effect is the greatest when the pregnancy occurs around/after 24 months post-treatment.
I know you now know more than you ever wanted to about my fertility, but this has been one of the hardest parts of this disease for me, so it is something you should understand. It is a real issue for young women diagnosed with cancer and there isn't a lot of research or information that allows us to make informed, intelligent decisions. I guess I won't know until the time comes when I decide to get pregnant if I can or not, but until then I can hope that this isn't something else that is going to be taken away from me by cancer.
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