Hello all,
First of all Sniffer, so sorry to hear you had to have a termination … as if the bc itself isn’t enough to cope with.
My story, as it’s relevant for you and gives a different perspective: I was first diagnosed in 2003, aged 37. Been married just a year, no kids. In fact we were just starting to talk about trying for a family, given my age, when I was diagnosed. It was an aggressive cancer, so there was no time to consider fertility issues before chemo started, although we did see a fertility specialist who, in view of the timescale, told us there was nothing much she could do. So I went ahead with chemo and radiotherapy, finishing in March 2004. I was then told we could go ahead and try for a family. I went back to the fertility specialist who monitored my FSH levels, which were low (?), but still basically said that, for various reasons, there was nothing much she could do and that my chances of conceiving naturally were about the same odds as fertility treatment being successful. So she wished us luck …
Wonderfully I got pregnant a year later, but miscarried within 6 weeks. Another year went by and I got pregnant again, and my daughter was born in December 2006. She was hard work, not a good sleeper and I breastfed her for 18 months. In October 2007 I went back to work full time and immediately began to feel unwell, lots of chest infections, fevers, even got pneumonia, more chest infections well into late spring of following year, and in Jan 2008 I started to get bad pains in left leg, sometimes in hip, sometimes in knee or ankle. Anyway, to cut a long story short, I was finally diagnosed in May 2008 with bone secondaries, so am now a mother of a three and a half year old, with incurable cancer.
I have thought about it all a lot, of course I wonder if the pregnancy fuelled the cancer, but despite everything I wouldn’t change the fact that I have given my daughter life. There are things we have had to contend with as a family, like a second round of chemo, my fatigue and pain, and last summer I had to have a hip replacement operation, and of course I feel terribly guilty at having brought this on my husband and daughter (even though I know in my head it’s not due to anything I have or haven’t done). And I am immensely sad that I won’t be around for her growing up and adulthood. I am now two years post secondary diagnosis, the treatment is keeping me stable and I have every reason to be hopeful. There are some women on here with bone secondaries who have survived for many years, but I know that the statistics give me another two to four years. Very difficult to live with.
My daughter had not had a ‘normal’ childhood, she will not have any siblings (not unless/until my husband remarries at least), but she is very loved by us both and I hope we will be able to give her the emotional resources to survive my death. She is very bright, physically robust, and although I find it exhausting looking after her (I don’t even do that every day as she goes to nursery some days) I think she is the best incentive I could wish for to keep going.
Anyway, that’s my story. No advice, just my own experience. Yes I got pregnant after chemo, but it hasn’t been a completely happy ending. I dread what will happen when my current treatment fails and I have to have more chemo, as I know that this will impact big time on my family.
Best of luck to you in what we all know is a terrible situation to be in.
Alison x