Circumstantial Infertility & Medical Clearance

“[I’m constantly waiting…]Waiting during treatment, not knowing if I’ll ever get clearance from my doctors to be allowed to try and have kids.

I don’t fit in with the ‘infertility’ per se, but because of my diagnosis I haven’t been allowed to try to get pregnant for the last 3.5 years.

I don’t have cancer; I have a midgrade soft tissue sarcoma...and it sucks.

I was diagnosed almost 3 years ago, and from the day I was diagnosed, having a baby was pulled off the table. 6 surgeries and countless scans later…[The latest piece happened] right before my last surgery, after traveling up to NY during covid, and waiting for bloodwork. I got a call from one of my doctors that they were cancelling the procedure since they didn’t think it was really working— and they said that I should just start chemo. I called my other doctor, and she was the one who was bawling.

I had spoken to oncologists over a year before about the option of chemo, but never thought it would be my only option. I cried to my doctor that ‘I couldn’t do it; I don’t have time for preservation; I’ll never have kids, How can I never have kids?’ I just remember sitting in my car outside the hospital saying, ‘I can’t do this’ over and over.

She fought for me to get my surgery back on, and did the most intensive procedure she could have— then I was given a timeline of 6 months to get pregnant before my next scan. But, if the scan shows active tumor, they want to push me to chemo.

Throughout this whole process, I just kept saying, I’ll take the surgeries, they can cut off my breasts, whatever they need to do— just don’t put me on chemo, don’t take away my choice for a future with a family. And then, it would make the second time in my married life where I’ve had to look at my husband and tell him it’s okay for him to leave, and that I understand if he wants to because I might not be able to give him everything we planned and dreamed. But he’s right by my side, always.

[I’m now in] the worst waiting game I’ve ever played.

I’m choosing to speak out now because would love to lend my voice to this. It’s important and isolating, and nobody should feel like they’re alone in what they’re going through.”