BabGirl

I’m Pregnant…after Cancer

I’m sitting here and feeling my baby in my tummy kick. I can now see her gangster moves from the outside and it feels like such a journey it’s taken to get to this point. So the long story, is that we had always wanted more children…a long time ago I would have answered that I wanted three but I think I’m now happy with just two!

For those who have been with me on this journey from the beginning you’ll remember that we stored 5 embryos before I had even cancer the first time.In March of this year I had a series of tests done, and my doctors all gave me permission to try for children. I had just turned 40 and they knew age wasn’t on my side.Elliott and I had a meeting with the clinic where we stored our embryos and they said we should go ahead and use them, as they would be our best chance to have another baby.

That news actually surprised us, because we’ve always looked at those embryos as being our backup plan. What would we do if we used them all and none of them worked? We had many unanswerable questions, but knew we’d need to just be brave and push through. So we started the wonderful process known as FET, Frozen Embryo Transfer. Oh goodness the amount of medicine I had to take!

  • 3 estrogen pills per day
  • 3 Progesterone Supplements per day

And we did our first cycle and implanted two embryos, I was freaking out. What if we had twins!? But that cycle didn’t work. Because I handled it pretty well, we got permission to move straight to the next cycle, but I had questions. Was there anything I needed to do differently? Nope, just need to try again.

We had five embryos, implanted two. Two of the embryos didn’t survive and so we had only one embryo left to try with. And Voila! That was the one that worked 🙂 To make sure my medicine was all okay, I ended up having to do a Progesterone injection in my stomach every morning…(for 12 whole weeks!)

At 7 weeks we had an ultrasound and got to see a heartbeat 🙂 Things felt a bit easier after that…we could breathe easier.But the whole time I wasn’t really thinking it would work. I have felt that this could not really progress. I was just very grateful I could get pregnant in the first place and wasn’t thinking past that. But with each appointment, each ultrasound, it all started feeling more real.

And now, after my 20 week scan, I’m thinking this might actually stick. I’m still a bit hesitant, but have slowly started getting baby things, making plans in my head, and of course telling people. I was even hesitant about telling people. I didn’t want any judgement, and looking back I don’t know why I was so scared of that. It seems a bit silly of me now.

But there’s still the fact that I’m pregnant after Cancer. Doesn’t that sound completely crazy? I’ve never known anyone to be pregnant after cancer. And I know I’ve spoken about how being pregnant could dampen your immune system and could help dormant cancer cells come to life and spread. But each time my brain starts to dip into that dark place, I instantly snap myself back and don’t let myself go there. I’m more than halfway through, and I’m feeling positive and my bump is getting bigger and could it all go badly? Yes of course, but anything and everything could always go badly. You just can’t let fear dictate your life decisions. You have to push forward. So here we are, nearly 21 weeks pregnant!! SO crazy!