It has been awhile.  My life continues to change…I just got married and bought a house!   Things are good.  I just got the all clear to return to work, and hopefully will be back after March break.  I’ve missed it more than anything.  Nothing has made me realize more how much I love my work then being off for this long.  I truly can’t wait to go back.  So lucky to love what I do!

I still have appointments with my Oncologists.  The majority of them are just follow ups but lately they have been very important to G and me.  We want to have a baby.  As great as that sounds, at the moment it is impossible.  I’ve been on Tamoxifen for the last year.  This drug prevents estrogen to bind to cells, which is good for me because my stupid hormones  stimulate the growth of cells (especially cancer cells).  My doctors would like me to stay on this for 5 years.  This is all fine and dandy but unfortunately it also has been know to cause birth defects.  So…no becoming pregnant unless I go off of it.  This is our dilemma.

With the fertility treatment prior to Chemo, G and I managed to produce one embryo.  We’ve named him Bungholio.  And by ‘we’ I of course mean G.  But I must say the name is unfortunately starting to stick 🙁   Our fertility doctor had told us prior to the egg extraction that it is best to have 3 embryos as the chances of 1 surviving the thaw and implantation is very low (they say the odds are 1/3).  I feel that 33% is still a good chance of a baby!

We have been looking more and more into surrogacy and have found out some weird stuff.  There are no laws regarding surrogacy in Canada, which means that if our surrogate decides to keep our baby (even with a written contract) she legally can and we must fight in court to try to get him/her back.  It is crazy and of course very scary.  Also, if the surrogate has to miss work because of the pregnancy, we must pay their salary.  With the added costs of the fertility drugs and procedure, the clothes, and food, this can end up being very expensive.  I do understand that it can and will be worth it but…just wow.

So that being said, we have been in discussion with our doctors about going off Tamoxifen.  As there has been no studies done, we are all a little unsure how to proceed.  Dr.S, my main Oncologist would like for me to at least stay on it for another year, which of course I will do.  So for now, we will wait.  We have a year to research reacurrance rates and possibly find a trusting surrogate.  I will keep looking up and forward to the year to come.  The best is yet to be 🙂