As if having breast cancer wasn’t a kick in the boob to start with, you’re forced to examine your life choices all at once. When you’re first diagnosed, you start struggling with that old chestnut which is mortality.

Then as a 34-year-old woman who hasn’t had kids yet. You have to deal with the fact that your fertility will be compromised by the treatments that are supposed to save your life.

In my situation, I always thought I had more time. For the last ten years, Josh and I have been helping raise his daughter Lily. She’s twelve now. We figured maybe in the next couple of years we could give her a brother or sister. We just needed to get our finances under control. We’re also of the mindset that helping raise one kid is hard enough. The older she is the easier it would be to not be overstretched and give her the attention she’s needed during the really important phases of her life. Our choices aren’t for everyone, but it felt right for us.

Now this whole cancer diagnosis, it made me feel like maybe I fucked up. Now, my choices are limited. So, in the middle of dealing with having cancer, we started the merry-go-round that is an IVF cycle before chemo.

To be honest, it felt weird like I was an imposter. Here I am starting an IVF cycle because I have cancer. Some of these couples in this waiting room have been struggling with infertility and dealt with the ups and downs of what that means. I felt like I was thrown into a process without having a clue of what I was getting myself into. And it was true. I had no idea; I was just preserving my ability to have a choice.

So, we started the 2x daily injections. I didn’t turn into a hormonal psycho so that was good for both me and Josh. I was given medication to make sure that my estrogen levels stayed low throughout the process. Since my tumor is estrogen and progesterone positive.

We both sucked it up and drove to the hospital at the butt crack of dawn for the vaginal ultrasounds and blood work. Not the type of fun I would expect so early in the morning. It was exhausting, but I guess not as bad considering we were hoping to do this once. I didn’t produce as many follicles as the doctor was expected. But, it wasn’t too bad. I had 8 follicles to work with.

After 11 days, it was finally go time. I was having my egg retrieval. That procedure involved twilight sedation. Being wheeled into the day surgery room, I’m not sure why but I was totally unprepared for the heavy-duty yellow and black stirrups. It looked like something out of Aliens or Prometheus. Stupid on my part, right. How else are they going to take these eggs out?

The procedure went well. The pain wasn’t that bad. I did have some issues with my blood pressure being low so that sucked. It meant spending a longer time recovering. But all in all, not that bad especially considering what a wimp I am. I don’t like needles or surgeries or any of that. I wasn’t meant to be a nurse or doctor and I’m OK with that.

While I was recovering from the sedation, we got the news that the doctors highly recommended doing a procedure called ICSI where the inject the sperm directly into the egg. They said it was the best course of action and considering my cancer diagnosis, the $2,000 procedure would more than likely be covered by insurance. Sounded reasonable, sure I was pretty drugged up at the time.

The next day, I woke up with tonsillitis. Lucky me, right. You can’t make this shit up. While at the MGH Urgent Care clinic, I learned that of only 5 eggs were retrieved. Of the 5 retrieved, only 3 were mature enough to be fertilized. Of those 3, only one egg was fertilized.

Considering all the work and everything we had gone through, it was a big letdown. One embryo. Just one. Damn!

So, it just goes to show you. Life never goes as planned. Not that I’m constantly expecting sunshine and lollipops, but I just figured dealing with cancer was hard enough. Then I’m thrown into the whole fertility circuit; it seemed like it should have gone a little better.

Josh, the absolute funny guy that he is and positive person. He’s decided that the nickname for this embryo is Neo. Because, despite all this shit, this embryo is the one.