Having Children After Breast Cancer

Alaina

I am 39 years old and was diagnosed in March 2009 with IDC (Stage 3b).  I am having my last chemo this Friday 7/24, and will have my Mx in August (left breast), radiation in the fall, and reconstruction starting next spring.

I have been advised that I need to go on Tamoxifen for 5 years to prevent recurrence of the breast cancer and keep me in a "chemical menopause" because my cancer was estrogen-receptor-positive. So it seems, according to my doctors, the rest of my life will be one long battle to suppress and/or block estrogen from attaching to cancer cells.

In the meantime, I would LIKE to have children. LOL!!! You need estrogen to do that (biologically anyway). Because of my relatively young age (for cancer) and the aggressiveness of the tumors (one was 8.5cm and the other was 6cm, and I never felt a thing!), there was no time to harvest my eggs prior to going into chemo.

I am posting here to see if there is anyone else out there who was in this situation and still managed to have children later.  Did you just take a calculated risk with your life to go ahead and get pregnant (ie: stop taking the recurrence-prevention drugs like Tamoxifen)or were there other options for you to consider that made it possible (and not medically threatening) to have children after this diagnosis and treatment?

Thanks, Alaina

Jaybird627

You should post this question on the Young Women with Breast Cancer thread. I'm sure you'll get some answers there. Good luck to you!

everyminute

Check out youngsurvival.org - there are a few women there that have had children after bc

Alaina

Thanks Ladies!  I have posted to the other forum.  I will check out youngsurvival.org as well.