Hi Awhite21,
It sounds like it’s still early days for you and I hope your treatment is going well.
Good on you for thinking about options now and pro’s and con’s, in the light of any future terms life preferences and on the stored eggs.
It sounds like it might be helpful to reframe the questions to consider both the risk of reoccurence and level and form of support around you, should you not meet a partner before taking any of this further (I hope you do, since it sounds like it would make this a fair bit easier to figure out!).
What support do you have from friends and family nearby (or if you moved)? I know 2 couples who went down the adoption route, and from what they said the process is very competitive, even for a couple, if hoping to adopt either a baby or very young child. Adoption assessors ask a lot of questions about what support the (would be) parents have around them, in one couples case this seemed to lean to a preference of extended family. I think most of us who have been diagnosed consider the risk of reoccurence and the onc’s talk in terms of survival statistics (as opposed to any specific individual). Evidently that all depends on type, size, grade and stage of bc, so your risk may well be low, but if contemplating parenthood alone, which clearly has it’s own pressures, what support do you have around (regardless of any health matter), plus if anything happened to you (such as a reoccurence)?
I was in my early 40’s when diagnosed and (for me and my diagnosis) my onc made it quite clear that if I should cut short Tamoxifen to 3 years to try for a child, I should think about the potential scenario of what would happen if I wasn’t around in the future.
You mention that you have a preference for adoption, rather than donor, if you don’t meet a partner. It sounds like you have looked into this but just in case you are not aware, both of the couples I know who successfully adopted did carefully consider if they were prepared for any additional issues which a child may have, eg if the birth mother had taken drugs while expecting etc or if adopting a young child, how the childs first few years of life may have been and whether they, as adopters, were up to and willing to take on any potential difficult behaviours etc.
I also have friends who used the same donor for 2 children which has worked out very well for them.
Also worth being aware that the adoption agencies don’t like people to be going through the IVF process at the same time, which obviously impacts on time, givenboth IVF and adoption can take a fair time anyway.
It’s a difficult subject to write about, let alone on a forum, and I’ve tried to get the right balance! So apologies if I didn’t quite do that! Feel free to send me a mesage on the forum email system if you think I can help in anyway.
Seabreeze X