Kids/Family

With all the crazy stuff that has been happening in the last few months I have been trying not too think too much about things I can't control about my future. When I was first diagnosed I was told by the doctor to make a list of questions that I wanted to ask him for my next appointment. One of the first questions I thought of was "Will I be able to have children?". When I asked this question the response I got was that after I was finished with chemo and radiation I should get my period back because I am so young. A little bit of research I have done has made me question this a bit. I have read that this is not the case with all women, some go into menopause because of their treatments and don't come out of it. This all depends on the type of cancer and treatment as well. The type of cancer that I have is hormone negative, which means it is not being fed by hormones. Usually if you are hormone positive you will continue taking a estrogen blocker for up to five years after you are done treatment. Since I am negative, and since I have still been getting my period after four chemo treatments it is likely that physically I would be able to have children. The other factor though is whether I will ever be cancer free completely. I was told that if everything went well I could potentially be "cured". But this is the absolute best case scenario. There is a chance that after this is all over I will still have cancer cells in my body that I will have to live with. People can live a long time with cancer in their body as long as it is not aggressive/growing. If this is the case I am sure that having a family would not be possible. There are many women who have had cancer and then had a family, the reality is though that most of these women did not have cancer that is as advanced as mine.

A couple of weeks ago I met a woman who was only a few years older than I am. She had finished her treatment two years ago and was very pregnant when we met. I asked her what the doctors had said about her becoming pregnant. She said that one doctor had cautioned her against it for "moral" reasons. This really made me think. Is it morally irresponsible to have a baby if there is a strong chance that cancer will reoccur and you might not live to see your child grow up? These are not questions I ever really envisioned myself thinking about even a few short months ago.