The egg project

If you think I'm taking it easy after surgery to recover from everything.. well boy are you wrong. You know it's not just the whole cancer thing that is thrown in your face. You have to make so many other decisions as well. The effects of chemotherapeutic drugs can lead to infertility. As a young single female this is not something you want to deal with. 

So the hospital told me to go talk to a gynaecologist specialised in cases like mine. Until very recently, embryo freezing was a reasonable option with good pregnancy rates, but egg freezing was a long shot. This made it very difficult for women like me, without a prince charming, to preserve their fertility. A single woman could freeze her eggs and not really know if she had a reasonable chance of pregnancy from those eggs. Or she could consider embryo freezing, with a much more predictable pregnancy rate, but the downside of having to commit to using donor sperm to create the embryos. Not a desirable option (although I did consider writing a letter to Johnny Depp and Alexander Skarsgård).

Today, thanks to dramatically increased pregnancy rates in the last few years, egg freezing is a realistic option for preserving fertility, one that has success rates that are approaching success rates for frozen embryos. So cancer patients can now freeze eggs knowing there are very reasonable pregnancy rates. Good. So let's do this.

Now to be honest this whole thing was very emotional for me. Every time I had to talk about it I started crying. Dealing with cancer is one thing, but to have this taken away from me that is just (first time I'm using this word) unfair. Truth is I don't even know whether or not I want children. Maybe with the right person. One day. But then again, maybe after everything my body has to go through, all the treatment and such.. kids are the last thing on my mind. Being healthy will be my priority.

After several tests my gynaecologist told me there is a fair chance my fertility is likely to be affected by chemo. Of course there is no way to predict what nature will do. Fact is the younger you are, the more likely you are to have normal periods again and still be able to have children once the chemotherapy has ended.

So I have officially started the egg project. It might sound easy peasy. Well it's not. There's a tight schedule. Everything has to be done precisely as described at a certain time. The pills and the hormone injections. Yes you have to put needles in your muffin top. I started last Friday and I'm wondering when the hormones are going to kick in. When will I turn into crazy Ciel?! I will have another echo tomorrow.    

I'm glad I'm doing this so future Ciel will have no regrets.