November 23, 2009 – Exactly one year ago today…

As I shuffle out to the waiting cab, my gelatinous legs and weak lungs do their best to propel me forward. The November air slices through my raincoat and I try to keep my left side still as a shiver runs up my spine. I give the cabbie the address and focus on inhaling the pine freshened air and ignoring the teeth of anxiety that gnaw at my stomach.

When I pull up, C is waiting for me in the lobby of a non-descript office building. I gingerly give her a one armed hug and let the cold elevator railing support my weight as we ride up to the eighth floor.

The doors open and we step into a living room like office with a panoramic view of the city. I check in with reception and try not to notice the expectant mothers who rub their bellies and look up at me serenely. I don’t belong here. The skin on my back prickles and I restlessly tap my foot. Finally, I force myself to sink into a plush chair and idly flip through one of the glossy magazines.

Instead of reading, my mind drifts back to a conversation where I told a former candidate that I might need chemotherapy. He instantly asked me if I had consulted a fertility specialist yet. I stared back blankly. What did he mean? When we parted, I called my genetics oncologist and she told me that she would expedite a referral to a leading fertility clinic. I had hoped she would downplay my concern, but instead she escalated it.

I had always pictured myself with a big, loud, messy family. As a kid, I thought I had won the Game of Life board game when I needed two cars to hold the 8 children in my blue and pink stick figured posse. I thought that as soon as I found Mr. Perfect, we could get started. To find out that cancer had the potential to take this away from me really pissed me off.

Thinking about that conversation still makes my hands shake, so I take a deep breath and focus on my magazine. A moment later, I hear my name and Dr. H welcomes C and I into his office. With a gentle tone, he outlines my options. He can’t give me exact statistics about the damage chemo might do to my body. He does tell me that the drugs will rev up my biological clock. At only 30, I might end up with the reproductive health of a 35 or 40 year old. He then mentions his limited success with freezing and thawing eggs. He tells me that he has a much higher success rate with freezing embryos; he has helped women in my exact situation go on to have healthy babies that way. We talk in surreal, hypothetical terms about injecting myself with hormones, selecting a third party sperm donor, and creating and freezing embryos.

Even though I sit in the room, my mind floats forward. I picture an intimate conversation, over a nice dinner, where I tell my future boyfriend that I already have kids. He looks up at me in shock, but I follow up and tell him that he won’t have to babysit next weekend because Johnny and Suzy are lounging on ice for now. How soon into the relationship would I broach this subject? How would he handle it, if ‘our’ kids looked nothing like him? These questions ping incessantly into my daydream.

When I come back to the present, Dr. H looks at me expectantly. What do I want to do? I have no answers for him. He notices the post surgical glaze in my eyes and suggests that we re-visit this conversation after I have had time to recover properly from my lumpectomy. Who knows, maybe I will get lucky and not need chemo.

I grasp the side of the chair with my right arm and push myself up to standing. I thank him for his time and leave the heavy decisions locked snugly in his office. I can’t face them yet.

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