Baby pictures

I've mostly come to terms with the fact that I will never be pregnant. The gynecological oncology surgeon who moved my ovaries up and out of my pelvis so they wouldn't fry in the radiation, said that if I were his wife, he'd recommend doing a total hysterectomy when they go in to take out the tumor. The rationale for that is that I'll never carry a child, so why bother keeping my uterus around, given that there is a chance (albeit a small chance) that I will eventually develop uterine or endometrial cancer. My medical oncologist is against it, since the risk of secondary cancer is so small. Regardless, I've got a few months before surgery to make up my mind on that piece, and the point is that I'm used to thinking of and talking about my uterus as something expendable and useless.

But oh lordy do my friends' baby pictures on Facebook make me want to cry. I find myself in tears thinking about writing a short congratulatory note to friends with new babies, being jealous of their fertility and feeling robbed of my own. Greg and I had just started planning to start a family when I got my diagnosis, which somehow makes my fertility (or lack thereof) feel more like something that was violently snatched from me.

We completed an IVF cycle before I started my first round of chemo and have eight frozen embryos, and my amazing sister-in-law has already volunteered to be a surrogate for us if it is medically possible, so odds are good that we'll still be able to have biological children. And that at least provides some intellectual comfort, but does very little to blunt the emotional impact of looking at pictures of my friends and their partners glowing over their offspring. Even more than walking around with the needle in my chest and my pump in a fanny pack, tubing peeking out here and there, knowing that babies will be a long and fraught journey for us in the best case scenario makes me feel the incalculable losses that cancer inflicts.

I often barely have enough energy to get up to let the dogs out, so I'm very glad that we don't have young children as I go through treatment. But I do sincerely hope there are babies in our near future, one way or another.