With their blessing

I gratefully had an appointment scheduled with my oncologist the day after finding out I am pregnant.  I was nervous that she was going to be very unhappy with me since they had all clearly told me to wait two years.  Instead, when I shared the news (quickly prefaced with a "I didn't mean to, I wasn't trying I swear"), she responded with congratulations.  Shocked?  Absolutely.  But not unhappy.

We discussed what this all means in terms of cancer, which I already knew gratefully.  Essentially we just talked about the worst case scenarios (if I had a recurrance while pregnant, I could actually have chemo and surgery safely for the baby) and she said it is a personal decision but she knows we wanted more children and so as long as we have discussed the risks (such as, what if this disease took me in the next three to five years, is Nick ok being left with two small children- even though none of us believe that would happen, it is still a worst case scenario), she says, enjoy it!  And then she said "Yay- I didn't make you infertile!"  Very sweet.

I also visited my breast surgeon quickly to share the news and she was also very happy and not concerned at all.  I expected that would be her reaction but it was still nice to have.  I do know that my radiation oncologist would not be happy with me because she is extremely risk averse.  She is also the one who said we could "talk about it" after three years.  But I appreciate that she is excellent at what she does and truly does have my best interest at heart.  You'll notice that I haven't said that I told her! =)  I feel naughty since I told the other two doctors, but I just wasn't ready for a negative reaction.  I will call her nurse eventually to share the news indirectly.

Next up?  A visit to the OB.  It is a little early for a normal first pre-natal appointment (I will only be 6 weeks and a couple of days- usually you wait until 8-10 weeks), but because of my high risk status (only due to the cancer last year, not actually high risk for anything) we thought I should get in a little early.  It should be plenty of time to get a heartbeat which will show some level of viability.  I also plan to ask if I should do any additional testing than I previously did (such as amniocentesis, etc) to check for chromosomal abnormalities.  I just don't know if my eggs were at risk of damage that could still produce an embryo but with issues that wouldn't result in a viable baby.  Chemo does a lot.  I think that it should be okay, but I'm not positive.  Once I get a little more information from that end of the spectrum, I think I will be ready to share the news publicly!  I was going to keep it to myself in case I had a miscarriage, but I've realized that I've shared everything else here, why wouldn't I share that experience?  It is my authentic journey, regardless of its ending, and that is what I have strived to share.  Very soon I will be able to press publish on these posts! =)