Can I have more children?

I know a lot of you have been wondering and it just makes sense to address this question the day after Mother’s Day, which by the way was a very good day for me. This is a post that I have been wanting to write for a while now. But at the same time it is also a hard one for me to write. The short answer to this question is that we may be able to have another child, but not the traditional way.

One of the first questions I asked when I was diagnosed was “can I have more children”? Jordan and I had been planning for a 2015 baby so this was very top of mind for me. Outside I may have looked calm, but on the inside I was a wreck. I have been planning baby #2 since Corryn was born. I’m talking… Names picked out and nursery designed in my head planning. Secretly I had even purchased a few things.

I could tell by the look on Dr Melnik’s face that I wasn’t going to like what she had to say, so I put my strong face on. My cancer is hormone positive which means hormones in my body actually feed the cancer so the plan even before knowing I needed both Chemo and radiation was to use a monthly injection called Zoladex to basically put my body in to very early menopause for at least 5 years, most likely 10. This rids by body of hormones, which mostly takes away the risk of this cancer coming back and is my best treatment option. I was told that after 5 years I could try to become pregnant with another baby, but my chances of conceiving would be low and if I was able to become pregnant it would very much increase my risk of a reoccurrence. I knew in that moment that not only would I never have the chance to nurse my child again, I would also never experience a pregnancy of my own again either. After hearing Dr. Melnik’s response, I knew I could never look at my little girl and feel ok with risking her chances of having a mommy to grow up with for a baby that didn’t exist. I said then that I would not take the risk in 5 years. At that point she and then my oncology geneticist a few days later went on to say that my ovaries and tubes are potentially at risk as well with this type of cancer so it is recommended that I also undergo a hysterectomy at some point in the near future. All of this sounds sad, but there is still hope.

I was given the name of Doctor William Dodds who started The Fertility Center here in West Michigan and told that although he is very hard to get into, he is the best in the field. If anyone could help me, both doctors were saying he could. I didn’t know what to think and since this was still within the first 4 days of being told I had cancer, I didn’t act on anything. However one of my doctored did and pulled some strings because The Fertility Clinic called me the next day a same day appointment.

To make a really long story a little shorter I was told that the only way I could have another biological child would be to do an emergency egg harvest and IVF procedure before any treatment began. This was Friday Feb. 27th, and I was scheduled for my bilateral mastectomy Monday morning. Dr. Dodds wanted me to talk to Dr. Melnik in the minutes before my big surgery to get her blessing on this as it would mean that we would be pumping hormones into my body for two weeks and potentially feeding the cancer. She softly smiled and said she was on board because she planned to be very aggressive with my surgery/treatment. So we got the first green light, however what I’m not mentioning is that this procedure is VERY Expensive(thousands), insurance does not cover any of it, and there are no payment plans. We knew we didn’t have the money to do this but we also knew this was our only shot to grow our family because adoption can be even more expensive. After a few days of debating we decided that we needed to at least have the option to have another baby if I am at a good place in a few years. Walgreen’s and The Live Strong Foundation donated my medication saying us a few thousand because of my diagnosis and we ended up borrowing the rest of the money from amazing family members. We are hoping to pull money from a home equity loan for repayment after we finally finish this home renovation. ☺ The good news is our main floor bathroom is almost functional so we’re almost there. smile emoticon

Starting the week after my big surgery we started the process of what they call “Emergency Egg Harvest, and IVF” through the Fertility Center. This basically means that they condensed what a normal woman who is trying to conceive does in 3-4 months, into about 8-10 days for me. I had to administer 3 injections a day, along with oral medications and have ultrasounds/blood work every other day. In a case like mine, you do not have one doctor. You see who ever can see you, so I met them 3 of the 4 doctors at The Fertility Center and loved them all. But… I will admit I had a rough time with this whole process. In fact my oncologist admitted that in all her years of practices, she has never seen another patient sicker during and emergency IVF process. It was like my own pregnancy (which was difficult in terms of feeling sick for the entire 9 months) times a good 10. I couldn’t eat, I couldn’t keep food down and I of course kept passing out. So it was a rough 10 days or so and my doctors saw a lot of me. In fact so did the ER but it was for a greater good. What’s amazing about the amazing staff at The Fertility Center is that as soon as your eggs are ready they give you that finial injection and you are in surgery the following day even if that day falls on the weekend. My eggs were ready to be harvested on a Saturday and I did have Dr. Dodds for my surgery. In the end I broke his all time record by producing 58 eggs… with 36 being of mature status. No wonder I was sick, right? In the end Jordan and I had 16 fertilized embryos frozen that will be ready if and when we choose to grow our family. We will have to have our embryo implanted into a carrier or surrogate mother, which of course comes at a cost, but at least the opportunity is still there which gives me hope.

At this point I am at peace with what ever happens. We have decided that when we are ready and have the perfect carrier ready we will try the procedure, which only has a 50/50 success rate one time. If it works we will have an addition to our family and if it doesn’t it wasn’t meant to be. We have one beautiful little girl at home with us, so no matter what we are blessed.

Like all of my medical experiences over the past few months, my experience with The Fertility Center was amazing so I would HIGHLY recommend them to anyone faced with or looking to make a call like this.

‪#‎mypersonalpinktime #FertilityCenterGR