The Uncertainty of Babies after Cancer

 The timeline is short. In fact, we once thought there would never be a timeline at all. 

When my oncologist first told me about the impact chemotherapy could have on my ovaries, the ten years of hormone treatment post-chemo, and the medical menopause I would be in during chemo, I wept for a future I had always dreamed of that was now in jeopardy. 

I remember looking at my friend with tears in my eyes and uttering four devastating words: that means no babies. 

In reality, it didn't mean no babies, but the swift weight of how complicated life would now be hit hard. 

Cancer makes many seemingly easy decisions a challenge. When I first met Jeff and he asked about my hot flashes (super sexy first date convo) I told him about the medical menopause I was in to try and save my ovaries from chemo and how I may not be able to have children in the future. It wasn't a conversation I ever thought I would have to have with a cute guy I was falling in love with. 

Once we got married, I had been on tamoxifen for a year with nine years to go. Tamoxifen is an anti-estrogen drug that tries to rid any surviving cancer cells of its food, and you cannot get pregnant on it for risk of birth defects. 

To go off the medicine was a risk, but in order to have a baby it was a necessity. 

A year into marriage we decided to begin the process. I endured all of the fertility testing to make sure pregnancy was even viable, then I went off the medicine for a three-month detox period. It was the first time in three years I had not been on some kind of hormone therapy. 

At the end of three months we waited for a clear mammogram and with my oncologist's permission, started trying for a baby. 

Trying. That was the key word. Even with all the preparation, knowing that my body had survived and even thrived post-chemo, and doing everything right, there were still no guarantees. 

One month went by. No pregnancy. 

A second month went by with no cycle at all. My hormones were in chaos trying to reregulate after all this time. 

A third month went by. No pregnancy. 

Everyone tells you not to stress when you are trying to get pregnant, but people don't understand the stress of going off a potentially life-saving medicine to try for a baby with a limited timeline of 6-8 months. Each month without a pregnancy was a clock ticking toward a completely different future. 

This was our one chance. If it didn't work now, we would have to wait years to try again. Now tell me that you wouldn't stress about that. 

And in the midst of it all, I felt really alone. There isn't any information on the entire internet about going off tamoxifen to get pregnant. There is not a single article about the risk if you don't manage to get pregnant. There is only one success story. The rest is like a void, a black hole I am willingly walking into without any information on where I am going. Even science doesn't have any definite answers on this process. 

And so I did the only thing I could do. I soldiered on. We prayed and we hoped, and we prepared for the fact that our future may not look like we want it to. We held tight to one another with the knowledge that we may not bear our own children, that we may have had one chance and it didn't happen for us. And we held grief with joy, frustration with hope, moving on into the unbeaten path that is a life after cancer, hoping that maybe our story can be a light to guide others when there wasn't one for us. 

And then Thanksgiving came around

 and with it, a faint blue line. 

Then a faint pink line. 

Then a digital test that said the words we had been longing for . . . 

pregnant.   

That's right, a miracle. Baby Mayberry, due August 2022. 💓