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Compromised Fertility

Since finding out that my egg reserve is really low, I’ve been thinking about this and the fact that it’s highly likely that it’s the impact of 14 years of chemo and it’s interesting that I’ve been desperate to have a baby since, well, I was about 10.

My mother was so convinced I would be a teenage mother because of it. Slightly ironic that I’m nearing 40, still childless, and having to go through IVF to have a baby, and maybe I’ve been broody for a reason and if I had had my way, had a baby by 30. Because my egg reserve is very low, the nice official phrase is 'compromised fertility.'

It would have been complicated anyway

It’s also funny how my little inner voice has possibly been telling me to get on with it for this reason. I know that women have a biological clock and often do feel more and more broody the older they get because of this basic instinct to have a baby. Because if you strip everything back to its basic form and forget we live in 2021, the ancient part of our brain that controls so much including our hormones thinks men are here to spread their genes as far and wide as possible and women are here to have babies. I know this is very non PC, very non 'go the feminists,' but my clock has been screaming at me for years.

So whilst I say I’m really chilled about having a low egg reserve, and it doesn’t really matter as I have my eggs frozen, I also feel a bit sad about this. Sad that my fertility isn’t fine from that perspective. Sad that if I wasn’t on chemo I would have probably struggled to have a baby naturally. Sad that I might have ended up going through IVF because of this. That in some way my body has failed to do what I believe it’s fundamentally here to do. Sad that it would have been complicated anyway.

In my parallel universe

But then again, in my parallel universe, the one where I’m not on chemo, this might not be my reality as I wouldn’t have had 14 years of chemo. My fertility wouldn’t have been smashed over the head by the drugs that they don’t know the full extent of on fertility. They haven’t really been around long enough to know, and I’m much younger than the average person on them and also the wrong sex. So there might not ever really be enough data on women on the TKI’s to know what they do.

But I don’t really need to worry about this. I have my eggs. They are there waiting for me. Well, a few have perished along the way, but I have enough for a baby or two and that’s what matters. I don’t need to worry about that. And now, the main thing is, one baby or two?!

I was told that they highly recommend against multiple embryos, but it also raises my chances of a successful pregnancy as often with twins, one doesn’t end up making it to the end. Anyway, that chat is happening soon with the obstetric team.  Which will mean another big decision to be made.

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