Fertility Help!

nurse_79

HI there........I currently went through 1 year of chemo at age 27. I have been done with chemo exactly one year now, and still no period has returned. What is interesting though is i have spotted once a few months ago, and i am starting to get cramps here and there.....I took a home ovulation test, and it said i was ovulating (+), does this mean i can get prego? Does this mean I will get a period soon??????  Thanks for your input! XOXOXO God Bless

nurse_79

WOW!!!! nobody replied to me, i am sad Please somebody, anybody give me some input..It is greatly appreciated, thanks!

CrunchyPoodleMama

Hi... I'm sorry you haven't gotten a reply yet! If you're truly ovulating, then yes, you can conceive... have you talked with your doctor about how long to wait before your eggs are likely to be genetically "good" again? Are you currently on post-chemo medication?

I'm a big believer in the natural/complementary to fertility (just as with cancer treatment), and before I conceived the last time, I spent a month REALLY getting as healthy as possible... eating a ton of organic leafy greens every day, exercising, getting into the sunshine for at least 20 minutes a day, and sleeping in total darkness. (I'm sure that all sounds crazy unless you've researched it, but there are valid reasons for all that stuff!) I also had acupuncture for three weeks... then I conceived.

I had been cautioned that it was better to do what I was doing for three months before trying to conceive. That maximizes your chances of having a good strong genetically healthy egg.

Unfortunately, I didn't take that advice... the acupuncture helped me conceive and it helped the embryo implant, but the baby (as I later found out) had a genetic fault that didn't allow her to survive past 9 weeks.

If/when I'm able to try to conceive again, especially after having gone through cancer, I'm going to take the same approach as before, but for three full months.

BTW, I was a total skeptic about acupuncture and thought it was a bunch of hooey, but decided to give it a try. Um, it's AMAZING for getting your body/hormones back in balance. I highly recommend finding a fertility acupuncture practitioner and going to them for three months. I would bet your cycles get back to normal (if you're not on medication that would interfere)... and it will definitely get you (and those eggies!) in the best condition possible to conceive a healthy baby.

Have you checked out the site Fertile Hope? I haven't been on it much yet, because my cancer journey is just beginning, but it's a whole site dedicated to pregnancy after cancer. I'm sure they'll have some great info for you. Also, this isn't cancer-specific, but the forums at www.ovusoft.com are wonderful when trying to conceive.

Hope that helped... best wishes to you and may you be a Mommy as soon as possible!!

shadow2356

Hello!!! Even if you don't get your period I think they can help you concieve if you want to try, There are special IVF protocols just for BC patients. I did fertility treatments to get my daughter. It wasn't due to BC, just age. There are lots of people who went on to have babies after BC. When I first got diagnosed I was freaking because i was ER/PR-. HER2+ and I called the in your shoes hotline. They matched me with a survivor who had my same diagnosis. She was a 8 year survivor and had a small child. She had the baby after the BC. Maybe you can call that hotline and see if they will match you with someone in your situation. It helped me. Good luck!!!!!

HOT-LINE: PLEASE CALL "YOUR SHOES" 800-221-2141 FOR IMMEDIATE HELP.

cancerkicker

You could have your doctor do a blood check to check your levels - that would be a good indicator of whether or not you could get pregnant now.

I didn't get my period back right away and got antsy after 8 months.  I ended up going to a fertility specialist and he gave me some pills to "jump start" my period and it worked.  After a few months, I got regular!  For me, I couldn't ovulate on my own so I continued with fertility and ended up with one beautiful son!

Good luck to you!  It is possible!

Jessica

Nordy

I was 37 at diagnosis, 3 months after my first born. Then after 6 months of chemo, I was in full blown menopause. It took a good 5 months for my periods to start kicking back in, but I could feel myself beginning to cycle even before that. My onc knew I was fighting the biological clock, so he told me to give it 3 good periods before trying to conceive... it took that three plus another 9, but one year after I got my periods back, we conceived. It was funny because I found out when I went to the doctor to try and find out why we weren't getting pregnant... lo and behold, we were already (barely) pregnant! We went on to have a beautiful healthy baby girl! We managed to conceive again after that, but ended up miscarrying - nothing to do w/previous cancer treatment, just one of those things. Hang in there... it is possible and sometimes just takes your body a while to kick start. Have you looked on the website Fertile Hope? I believe that is what it is, and they have lots of information and resources listed there. Good luck to you!

nurse_79

Thanks soooooo much to everyone who replied!!!!!!! I really appreciate it, and I will take all your advice for sure...i hope to report a pregnancy soon!

jmar19

are you ER+?  I am and my oncologist was actually happy that I didn't get my period back for about a year.  When I did get it back, he got worried and put me on lupron to stop it.  It all depends.