Possibility of having children

Anna7786

Firstly, hugs to all the warriors out here. I have been a visitor to this forum, since I was diagnosed in June 2018. And your experiences have given me a lot of strength.

i have been diagnosed with Triple Negative, Stage 1 IDC and I start chemo next week.

I don't how many of you have faced my situation, but i hope that atleast one of you can answer me. i am 32 years, single and without kids. I had always wanted to marry and have children of my own, but unfortunately that didnt happen. And then this happened.

My question is - is there anybody here who had been diagnosed at around this age before they had kids and how did they deal with it? Or do you know anybody who has gone through this specific situation. Have they since had kids?

I am an Indian, and as is typical in our culture, young girls are almost always married before they hit their 30s. In fact, even my doctor is unfamiliar with this situation, and he is unsure what to advise me. I am getting no answers wherever i turn to and i wish someone here can give some hope.

Cpeachymom

Anna, sorry you find yourself here. There are a few threads about having children after treatment. I’ll see if I can find some links.

I know one of the things that was offered to me to preserve fertility was to have ovarian suppression using Lupron or Zoladex to shut the ovaries down so they don’t get damaged by the chemo. I ended up not needing chemo, but my MO wants me to stay on the Lupron because it also decreases my chance of recurrence.

Perhaps see if ovarian suppression is an option for you? Best of luck as you make your decisions!

Cpeachymom

https://community.breastcancer.org/forum/157/topics/857406?page=1#post_5234059

https://community.breastcancer.org/forum/27/topics/763924?page=32#post_5164422

Moderators

Hi Anna, and welcome to Breastcancer.org,

We, too, are so sorry to hear of your diagnosis, but we're really glad you've found us. As you can already see, our Community is a very supportive and helpful space, with many others always willing to assist you!

In addition to the helpful links Cpeachymom posted to other forums with similar discussions, you may also be interested in checking out the main Breastcancer.org site's section on Fertility and Pregnancy Issues During and After Breast Cancer, specifically the pages on Treatments that Affect Fertility, and Pregnancy After Treatment.

We hope this helps, and we look forward to hearing more from you soon! Please let us know if you need any help navigating the discussion boards at all.

--The Mods

Icietla

Welcome, Anna. We are very sorry about your diagnosis and all you are going through.

Yes, we have among our membership other young women who are childless.

You are never alone here at BCO.

https://community.breastcancer.org/forum/27/topics/861627?page=1

https://community.breastcancer.org/forum/27/topics/755237?page=1

https://community.breastcancer.org/forum/27/topics/757067?page=1

Cria

Hi Anna,

Sorry you are dealing with this, but glad this resource is here. I am 43 years old, single, childless, diagnosed early June. I saw my MO (Medical Oncologist) 3 days after my pathology from my core needle bx came back, and she brought up the fertility issue right away, god bless her. I am not sure if I will ever be in a place where I feel it would be right for me to bring a child into the world, but given my age I know I didn't have much time to figure it out. You are 11 years younger than I am and so are your ovaries, so you likely have a better chance than I do for a few things: your ovaries are likely making many more antral follicles that mine are, meaning you could harvest eggs and freeze them to try and fertilize them when you find your future husband (I've been told you need about 15 eggs harvested to freeze to end up with one viable embryo). Your ovaries are younger and more likely than mine to survive, chemo, especially if you suppress them during Chemo like Cpeachymom mentioned.

I don't know how your MO feels about delaying chemo for 2 weeks or so at this point to give you a chance at fertility preservation, but it is worth a shot at talking to him and to an embryologist (fertility doctor). It is important to do what is best for you and your health, and if having some eggs or embryos frozen for possible future children is going to give you increased mental and emotional health as you continue with the treatment of your cancer, than it is important, too.

I have had more than a couple people question why I am trying to harvest eggs etc. and not starting chemo IMMEDIATELY, but I know that it is probably now or never for me and if didn't do something now, it was taking away my ability to choose later. I hope you are able to find some options to help you to do what is right for you.

Here's my story:

I didn't think I was going to need Chemo, but the oncotype DX said differently. Because my AMH (antimullarian hormone- a measure of how many eggs you have remaining) was depressingly low (despite having suppressed my ovaries with birth control pills and a Mirena for 20 years and a family history of menopause in the mid 50's), and the fact that the ovaries may not survive chemo, I decided to go ahead with ovarian stimulation and egg harvest followed by invitro fertilization of my eggs with donor sperm.

My oncologist and I talked about it and she gave me a date that was the latest date that she wanted me to start chemo (I'd had my lumpectomy and sentinel lymph node bx). I then called up the fertility clinic where I'd had a consultation before when I didn't think I'd need chemo and didn't think I'd need their services so quickly, and started ovarian stimulation the next day. my first cycle yielded 5 eggs: one degenerated, two were mature, two were immature. The immature ones failed to mature in the dish overnight. The two mature eggs were inseminated with ICSI and both fertilized. one made it to merula stage and stalled, so did not develop far enough to freeze, the other did make it to blastocyst, was biopsied for chromosome analysis and was frozen.

half way through the first stimulation cycle I asked what the embryologists thoughts were for how many embryos to expect based on the number of follicles I had and was told they were hoping for one embryo. This was a bit of a shock to me given the time, $, drugs etc. and I figured if I was doing this, I was going to do at least one more cycle if I could manage to fit it in before chemo. I found out you can start a second cycle of stimulation immediately after egg harvest, so that's what I did and am going to have my second harvest in two days, most likely (Friday the 13th ).

Fewer follicles this time, but I'm hoping for two good eggs again. After this I'm done, and will be starting chemo on Monday, the 16th, whether I've just got the one embryo, or I have more. At least I will know I tried my best and did what I could with what was available to me. And I'm still starting chemo 2 weeks before my oncologists theoretical latest date to start .

buttonsmachine

Hi Anna! I'm sorry you have found yourself in this situation, but I hope you can find the support you are looking for here. I will tell you my experience with this.

I was diagnosed in 2016 at age 32 with ER/PR+ Her2- BC, stage 1A. I am not married, have no children, and I always kind of thought if I were to have kids it'd be in my 30's, but then... I got breast cancer. I was early stage, young, and node negative, and I was originally "only" supposed to do four rounds of TC chemo. Also, the high cost of fertility preservation was prohibitive for me. In light of all these factors, I was willing to gamble on my ovaries surviving chemo, and I hoped I'd still be able to get pregnant naturally someday. I did not do fertility preservation.

A few months after chemo ended, my period came back as regular as ever, and although periods do not automatically mean fertility, I think I probably made it through those four rounds of TC with my fertility intact. Some months later I had a local recurrence, and I had to do AC chemo and eventually Xeloda. One MO said my ovaries might not survive AC chemo with my previous history of having had TC chemo, and now we're throwing Xeloda into the mix. My period has not come back yet.

Anyway, I personally was able to make my peace with the possibility of never having kids. Sure, there are days were I wonder what might have been, but I have other passions and aspirations in life that are fulfilling to me. That's just how I feel about it. Maybe by some fluke of nature or miracle I'll get pregnant one day... if that happens, cool, but if not, it's fine.

Anyway, the takeaways from my experience are:

Only you know how important this is to you. Although we hope cancer treatment will follow our plans, it sometimes doesn't. If you think it might regret being childless later, make it a priority to keep your options open NOW, before your fertility is damaged by chemo, or something unexpected happens. Also, don't delay, because the whole process of egg retrieval takes time. The Livestrong Foundation has financial assistance available - call them if you have questions. https://www.livestrong.org/what-we-do/program/fertility

Also, if you want to have kids, you will maximize your chances of being able to do this by doing ovarian suppression during chemo AND freezing your eggs with fertility preservation. Ask your MO about adding ovarian suppression to protect your ovaries. BCO had a great podcast about this here: https://www.breastcancer.org/community/podcasts/ovarian-suppression-20171208

Hope that helps, and best of wishes to you in navigating this. Be your own advocate and speak up about what you want!

Kat1984

hi Anna,

I'm so sorry that you have to be here but I hope I can give you some hope! We have similar diagnoses, I was diagnosed triple negative stage 2 in 2015 at age 30. While in a relationship, we weren't married and had no kids but had hoped for children in the near future. I had some eggs frozen prior to chemo, as like you I was told chemo can cause fertility issues. After that I did 16 rounds of chemo and BMX. I completed treatments in June's 2016. In August 2017 my surgeon gave us the all clear to try for a baby. Within weeks I was pregnant! My eggs are still being stored at the fertility clinic as I fell pregnant naturally.Our daughter, Indie, was born 8 weeks she ago. I'm 33 now. I know everyone's story is different but having children after cancer is possible! Best of luck to you on this journey x

Cpeachymom

Congratulations Kat! So wonderful to hear good news like that!

Anna7786

Thank you so much girls - for all the information and the hope. And Kat, it is so positive to hear your story. Congratulations to you and God bless little Indie.

My doctor did talk to me about including Ovary suppression treatments. But he, for the most part, is fairly confident about my periods returning after the Chemo. He was not quite warm about the idea of including ovary suppression, but he said he would seek for the recommendation of the Tumour Review Board and would let me know their opinion before i go in for my chemo on Tuesday. So i will wait for his recommendation.

About freezing my eggs, i have some qualms - also the cost of doing the procedures are quite high here. It won't be covered by my employer as well. and i am also not sure how long my chemo can be delayed for this.

Even though i have been reading through so many positive experiences, I must say that chemo & radiation scares the hell out of me.

How did you all manage through the pre-chemo phase? Any suggestions?

Moderators

Hi again Anna --

We're glad to hear there's conversations happening with your treatment team about all this. Hopefully you'll have a fertility/pregnancy plan soon!

For now, as you focus on your upcoming treatment, it may help to discuss your chemo fears with others facing treatment this month in the July 2018 Chemo thread. There's lots of great advice, tips, and support there from others who are going through what you're going through, while you're going through it!

We hope this helps and we look forward to supporting you through treatment and beyond!

--The Mods