Today we went back to Christies to yet another consultant. This one is a gynae consultant, so I now have a bone guy, a boob guy, a cancer guy and a ‘ladys bits’ guy… and a fertility lady.
After discussing the option of having my ovaries removed, the consultant was concerned of the procedure, because of my age - IE am young for ovary removal. I advised that it was no point having my ovaries, as I would never be able to naturally have children myself, and egg harvesting means pumping me full of hormones, which is a no-go because it will feed my cancers.
The consultant looked a little surprised, and advised that she was going to refer me to a fertility expert. Apparently, on the NHS, I can have sections of my ovaries removed, complete with un-matured eggs, and they can be frozen. Then, once we have found a suitable surrogate, my egg can be matured outside of the body and that, and Mat’s sperm can be put into her, after being screened for Li-Fraumeni syndrome (p53 gene). The success rate of this is just over 10% - this is only a small percentage, but it is a bigger percentage than we ever thought we had.
I know that this is not a guarantee that Mat and I *will* have our own children, however the feeling that there is an option, a possibility, has made me the happiest I have been since the whole C debacle started… I have pretty much not stopped crying since I left the consulting room.
The feeling of wanting a child, yet being told you can never have one is absolutely excruciating. To then be told that there may be hope…there is no way to describe the feelings I have right now.