Life After Cancer: The Impossibility and Yet Possibility of Having Children

Some people grow up knowing that they want to have kids when they get older and others don't think about it, or at the time believe that they do not want kids later in life. I grew up believing that I never wanted kids. I just never really saw myself as a mother. Later on I thought that if I did have kids I would like to adopt at least one of them because there are so many children looking for good homes. But lets face it, I was young and had so many things that I wanted to do before I would even consider having little ones running around. 

You never know how your mind will change throughout your life, so learning that I would never be able to have kids of my own physically at the age of 19 did not cause a great deal of turmoil at that time. In the moment I was more concerned with trying to stay alive than anything else. One of my next posts will talk more about why I can no longer have children but I need to at least briefly explain parts of the reasons with more details later. One of the reasons was during my consolidation therapy I had a major complication and had to be put into early menopause to prevent similar future complications. The second reason was due to total body radiation that I had to go through before I had my stem cell transplant, and the third reason has to do with a rare disease involving my heart and lungs, which I developed from a complication from graph vs. host disease after my stem cell transplant. All of these contribute to me not being able to have children of my own. 

Even though I did not think that I wanted children at that time in my life there was no way to know that at some point I would meet someone with whom I would want to have a family. Knowing that it was already impossible to bear children and constantly having a doctor, one with whom I have to see every six months repeat to me that it would be dangerous for me to get pregnant, makes it even harder now that I would like to have kids. It is frustrating to repeatedly have to tell a doctor that you see regularly that there is no biological way to become pregnant and having to explain why when they should already be aware of that makes the situation more difficult. 

Another tough part is that recently (September) I got married and everyone wants to know when we think we will start having children. I can't blame them, people are curious and a lot of them do not know my history and those that know do not know everything. But it is still hard to repeatedly respond to that question.

Just because it is impossible for me to have children physically it is still possible to have children through adoption. Recently my husband has been talking about wanting a baby and the topic comes up even more when we are with family and their kids or friends who have children as well. 

But it is still hard because there are so many things that you have to consider before starting the process and even more things that are taken into consideration before you can even begin the process of adoption. Instead of just deciding that you are ready to start trying for a baby you have to wait for someone that you do not know to decide that you are ready and financially stable to support a child. That is definitely a job that I would not want to have. To tell someone hey, I know you really want to start a family but not right now, of course in a more professional manner. Oh, that would be hard. 

So, this is what has been on my mind lately and I am sorry that it took such a long time to get this post up but having three jobs all start up at the same time made life super chaotic until I could get use to finally having to wake up at a specific time every morning. :) Oh adulthood, you are not as fun as I thought you were going to be when I was a child. :)  Hopefully I have finally gotten things on track so that posts will be more regular.