My Fertility/Infertility Story

IVF Journey

Upon being diagnosed with early stage breast cancer, one thing to consider is fertility preservation. Early on in the cancer diagnosis, you are uncertain what your treatment plan will be; until the surgery happens they cannot determine the final staging. If caught early enough with no spread to the lymph nodes, you may not need chemotherapy, but in most cases you will be recommended surgery and radiation. Uncertain what my care plan would ultimately be, my doctor advised I should decide if I wanted to do IVF or not, especially as I was 41 years old. I could do it before or after surgery, but would want to do it before radiation or chemotherapy if possible. 

It is important to note, it is still possible to do IVF or have a natural birth after radiation and chemotherapy, and they even have certain drugs that help suppress and protect your ovaries during chemotherapy. As a part of a Babies after Breast Cancer Facebook group, I have seen many women go on to have babies using IVF or naturally after treatment. A lot of these women are diagnosed in their 20's and 30's unfortunately. For my circumstance and being 41 years old, I opted to do the egg retrieval process before surgery in April of 2024 as my breast cancer surgery was scheduled in mid-May of 2024. 

Leading up to my first meeting with a nurse to teach me how to mix the drugs and do the injections, the fertility clinic staff worked hard to help get me discounted or donated drugs and supplies needed for the injections. As we were paying out of pocket for these services, I am very grateful to them for this! 

April 10, 2024

After getting all the medications and testing completed, it was finally time to meet with the nurse to go over injections. This has to be the most overwhelming part of this process. My mom and my sister went with me to learn how to do injections. My mom had training as a Certified Nurse Assistant and was the one who would be doing the mixing and injections. I truly do not know what I would have done with out her and my sister. 

There are several different medications and with the Omnitrope and Menopur you have to draw up a dilutent and slowly inject it into the powder making sure not to create bubbles. Once mixed, you draw up the dosage per the doctor instuctions and then inject yourself. At least the Gonal-F is a pen that is easy to set up. This was the absolute hardest part for me as I have never done anything like this and thank God my mother has. I was able to record our meeting with the nurse and highly suggest doing that in case you need to reference it again. Once we received the instructions we headed home. 

April 11, 2024

The next day was my first ultrasound to clear me to start injections. The doctor said my ovaries were nice and boring, which was a good thing! He cleared me to start injections. He noted that he added in 2.5 MG of Letrozole as a hormone based chemotherapy to ensure my estrogen would not get too high and .5 mg of Dexamethasone, a steroid that suppresses the immune system and inflammation to help with my breast cancer. I was doing a mini IVF, so not the full throttle of dosages and amounts due to costs and the fact that I have a mild case of Polycystic Ovary Syndrome (PCOS) which actually makes me a good candidate for IVF. People with PCOS usually have higher ovarian reserves and can yield a lot of eggs with less medication. The doctor said the following Wednesday would be the true moment of truth to see how I am responding to the medications. If I'm responding quickly, my retrieval date could be moved up shortly after that ultrasound. If I'm doing good, but still need a couple more days I continue the injections until the next ultrasound. If I am not responding at all, I may not have any egg retrieval. 

Once cleared I headed home and my mom and I went to work preparing the first injection. I felt so bad for my mother, I am a horrible patient. I was anxious and intense reviewing the needle and meds. It took me a while to finally relax so my mom could inject me in the lower stomach area near my belly button. The great news, it did not hurt at all! 

I was scared if I would have a reaction to the medications. After the first shot, I was to take the hormone based chemotherapy and fertility pill, Letrozole. I am happy to say I felt fine! I went out to lunch with family and then walked around a bit before heading home. I said goodbye to my dad, who was visiting, and after heading back into my house crashed out. I am not sure if it was the events of the day or the medications, but I was tired and took a nap in the early afternoon. I am never one to nap, so I must have been really tired. Later that evening we did our second and third injections. 

The first night I was overwhelmed and did not take the steroid medication. I had an ok sleep, but thought about high cortisol levels. I would take the steroid medication the next day.

April 12, 2024

Day two had a rocky start. When drawing up the already mixed Omnitrope, my mom had bent the needle. When she injected the medication back into the vial, it foamed up a bit. That is the hard part of being at home doing this ourselves. I called my doctor's office and they reassured me it would be okay to draw up only the dosage I needed and the rest of the foam would go down by the next day. We got a new needle and were ready to go. 

I realized going through this, how hard this was on my mother. She was stressed and me stressing only made it harder. She didn't want to hurt me or make a mistake either. IVF is hard on the people helping you. They want to get it right, not hurt you, and not see you suffer. 

The injection went well and did not hurt. I went for a walk that day with my sister and then then the grocery store. My energy felt pretty good that day. We came home and did the evening injections with no issue. My mom did great mixing the Menopur and setting up the Gonal-F.  We were getting our groove. This night, I took the steroid medication and did not notice any changes. I was grateful for that. I had a great night's sleep. 

April 13, 2024

I woke up rested, good nights sleep! I always wake before anyone and had a quiet morning. At about 9 am I got ready for my first injection of the day. I made a promise to myself that I would be calmer and less intense when getting the needles prepared and getting injected. I didn't want my stress to be transferred onto my mom and sister. We did our morning injection (Omnitrope) and I took the Letrozole . I felt pretty good that morning, so good I started cleaning the house. I swept, vaccumed, and mopped the kitchen, living room, and my bedroom. Then I went through laundry and hung up my clothes, made my bed, and went through clothes to get rid of. I was feeling really good, until I noticed my heart started racing and I started fixating on a comment an acquaintance had made several days ago that really upset me. I was working myself up and my heart rate was going up. I realized the hormones were really kicking in and I needed to calm down. I thought the hormones would make me more emotional in a sad way, but instead, it really ramped up a surge of anger. My doctor had warned me this could happen, and reassured me that it was normal. I was very grateful to not be working while going through this. I realized I hadn't eaten in a long time. After eating and laying down, my heart rate slowed down. I started to feel better just in time for my next two shots. The evening shots went pretty smooth and I took the steroid medication.