Fertility Part I

I'm not going to make excuses here for how long it's been since I last blogged (Hmm, that sounds like "How long since your last confession?" when I would usually lie to the priest about how long it had actually been. Yes, in confession.).

So while I'm on a confessional bent, it's been an interesting couple of months. I found out about a month ago that my fertility is probably in the dumper. And boy, it was a blow. Once again, I went into the appointment with the reproductive endocrinologist thinking that everything was probably just fine. Sure, I'd had some pretty heavy duty radiation, but my radiation oncologist didn't expect anything to be affected, and so I just went with that.

Bad idea.

I was quite taken aback. I guess my AMH was .2. Last year (pre-radiation) it was 1.2 (should be .7 or above). That's not so good. And old as I may be, I don't think age could blow things up quite that effectively.

Why I haven't been prepared for the worst these past couple of years, I don't know, but I just haven't. Then when the worst happens, I am completely caught off guard. Then I'm caught off guard by the fact that I'm caught off guard! How crazy is that?

I know I have options. I saved embryos. And there are even options before we get to that point. It just took me some time to get used to the fact that it was unlikely that I was going to conceive naturally. It made me sad. And then there was part of me that thought, "Maybe I'm not going to have another child." And going down that road made me sadder.

I guess there is this category of the "healthy" (interchangeable with "lucky") cancer survivor. (BTW, as everyone is coughing and sneezing around me this season I've had barely a sniffle and the irony does not pass me by.) I've said this before, but as easy (and, I guess, healthy) as it is to slip back into your old life's routines, you're not the same person. You're the post-cancer person. Then, these things crop up like whack-a-moles, but they're whacking you on the head, as opposed to the other way around.

But a week or two passed and I made peace with the post-cancer me and her options and then....