Hi. My girlfriend and i have been together now for almost two years. We are both 29. I love her very much and we are very happy together. On 4th September she got diagnosed with Grade 3 invasive ductile cancer, progest/oestrogen +. She had a mastectomy 3 weeks ago and is doing really well. It’s healed well and looks in proportion etc… Now the doctors are saying that she has had all the cancer removed which is great, but to undergo a course of chemo as a preventative measure. This obviously has it’s implications on fertility. With everything that we have had to deal with the last thing on her mind is having a baby, also we are pretty young and this is not something we were yet ready to think about. But, we both want kids and want to have them with each other. it’s also made me think about kids a lot and how much i actually want them. So today we went to the fertility clinic as she was on the first day of her period. However she has a cyst (normal and not to cause any worry) on her ovary and they are now saying they can’t give her the hormones to increase the egg production as it will increase the size of the cyst and not the amount of eggs. So now we have 2 choices
1 - a drug that will maintain her period in the early stages and give the cyst a chance to go down after which they will drain it and give her the course of hormones after that.
2 - wait for three weeks and see if the cyst is still there, suppress it if it is and then go ahead with the treatment at her next period.
The trouble is that she has had enough of waiting for things to start and wants to get the chemo started so it can end as soon as possible. Also she doesn’t want to have anymore hormones and drugs in her then is necessary. I completely understand her feelings on this but I really want her to go for the treatment as in my eyes the delay to the chemo would only be about 3 weeks to a month. We have been told we have as much time as we want for fertility treatment (up to 2 attempt) so there is no great risk to her health to do this. I worry that her desire to just get this chemo done and out of the way will affect her and our future. But at the same time it’s hard to press my side as it feels like i am just asking for what i want and not concerned with her well being.
Does any one have advice for me? She is quite fit and healthy so do we have a good chance of conceiving naturally anyway after chemo? We need to make a decision soon to start one of the treatments on monday. We both have a good and open relationship, there’s no problem talking about this and we are doing so. I would love to know what people think and if there are any of you in similar situations? Thanks for listening…