For as long as I can remember, I've wanted to have children, but I also wanted to have my life semi-organized in order to truly enjoy parenthood. Then, of course, cancer happened and mucked up the works. In the world of young adults with cancer, this situation is fairly common; fertility and building a family is a huge part of our lives that is drastically changed by a diagnosis and dealing with those extra hurdles and challenges can look different for everyone. Before my diagnosis, Tom and I expected that someday we would have children, but with the uncertainty of my health and future, being parents became a much more complicated situation.
We started talking about the possibility of making our dynamic duo into a terrific trio about a year ago. We were coming down off of the high of my successful treatment, I was going back to work, and we felt comfortable enough with my health to entertain the thought of parenthood. But, we still had to decide whether we wanted to bring a child into our lives, knowing that there was a considerable possibility that I may not be around to see a child grow up. Both Tom and I had a lot of reservations: I may be healthy now, but the cancer could come back even stronger at any point. What kind of mother would I be if I knowingly brought a child into this life, thus setting them up for an inevitable future of stress, pain, and loss? How is that fair to a young child? How could I consciously ask Tom to accept the very real possibility of living the difficult life of a single parent? And what if something happened to Tom? I couldn't guarantee I was going to be healthy or even living the following year, how could I possibly support a family?
As we worked through these questions, we sometimes shared our concerns with others, which, quite honestly, didn't always provide the solace we had hoped. Of course, everyone was supportive, or tried to offer helpful advice, but sometimes we would hear "all new parents go through this" or "no one knows what the future will bring". While this is theoretically true, for us the reality was more stark. Not all new parents have faced their own death, wondering if they will outlive their grandparents, as I have. Not all new parents have had to consider the possibility of being a widower at the age of 33, as Tom has. Clumping our experiences in with "everyone else" felt to us as though our concerns and feelings were being brushed off, and, quite honestly, we felt as though the severity of our situation was being ignored as we tried to make a responsible decision.
I mention this not to be callous, but to be honest. I don't blame the folks who said those things, of course they were just trying to help. No one really knows what to say or how to help solve someone else's problem, especially when mortality is part of the equation. As my mom said to me a few hours ago, "It's hard being a human, Abigail." At some point we will all make difficult decisions, and we will all offer unhelpful advice, and all of us will just have to deal with those hard parts. I can rattle off a long list of times that I have said the wrong thing at the wrong time, even though I meant to do right. I am no exception.
So, Tom and I worked through the hard questions and our heavy fears. Our support system reminded us that we are not alone in our struggles. As I've said before, we have truly amazing families, and we realized that any child that joins our home would be loved and cared for by all of us, no matter what challenges we might face in the future. I also had a strong urge that our window of parenting opportunity may be closing; my health was stable right now, but what about the future? I strongly felt that if we wanted a child together, it was now or never. So we decided, yes, let's do it.
The next big question, of course, was how? Due to my various chemotherapy treatments, my baby-making parts have pretty much shut down, and it was unlikely that I could get pregnant. Even if that did happen, my current medications would be detrimental to a growing fetus, and it would be essentially impossible for me to carry to term. On the other hand, it would be unsafe for me to go off my medications for any extended period of time. So the so-called "natural" process was not an option.
Fortunately, before I started all my treatments in 2013, we had the presence of mind to ask about fertility preservation. We went through the first part of the IVF process, and successfully had 15 embryos cryogenically frozen (for a review of all that, see my emails/posts #2 and #3). Using our own embryos could mean the first 9 months of the parenting experience would be different for us, but we would still have a child biologically related to both of us. So we decided to look into our options
We met with Dr. Ginsburg, the fertility specialist at Brigham and Women's with whom we had done the IFV process over a year before. From her we learned that what we were looking for was a "gestational carrier", a woman who would carry our baby during pregnancy, but would not be biologically related to the child. A gestational carrier is different than a "surrogate"; surrogates often provide their own eggs for the process, and are therefore biologically related to the child as well. "Intended parents" (Tom and me) could find a gestational carrier in two ways: through an agency or ask someone you know. She also said that because our embryos were created with my 28 year old eggs, and because we had so many of them, if we chose to go this route, we had good odds that it would be successful.
So, for the past year, Tom and I have been asking questions, researching online, reading books, asking more questions, talking to doctors, talking to lawyers, talking to friends, talking to family, and asking even more questions. What we have learned about the world of "assisted reproduction" could fill a book, so naturally, I have grand plans of writing one someday (there are a lot of resources for women interested in becoming a surrogate or gestational carrier, but information aimed specifically at intended parents can be hard to find).
And now the million dollar question: Is it going to happen? Are we going to be parents? Is there a Mini-Morgan in our future?? (I guess that's actually three questions...) The truth is, we're not sure yet. Every day we get a little closer to becoming parents, and hopefully things will work out for us soon. But we're also intentionally being very cautious; there is an unimaginable number of things on the gestational carrier baby-making list to cross off before we are close enough to jump for joy. Yes, we've been slowly telling our friends and family that we're on this path, and writing this post is our next step towards being excited, but there's still more to do. We're almost there, but we're not there yet.
So in the meantime, dear reader, if you're feeling happy for us (because apparently some strange people think another Morgan is something to be celebrated), feel free to grin, to hope, and to get a little excited. Hopefully, if all goes well, we'll be able to celebrate with you soon.
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