The Ovaries Are ON!

It just keeps getting better.

No more than .... eh, five minutes after I found out I was cancer-free, I called the Lancaster Fertility Center. I might have been jumping the gun a little bit but if I can't have my own babies, might as well find out sooner than later.

It was two weeks ago that we met with Dr. Sobel. He's kind and cute. Makes me feel like there is a little hope. That's when he drew my blood to see if my ovaries were - as I said it - "dead" or if they might still work. It turns out - much to everyone's surprise - my ovaries are functioning perfectly fine. If I still had a uterus I'd be getting my period. (Right now, that's still the only upside of a 32 year old having a hysterectomy - I will no longer be funding the Tampax empire.) The hormones needed to keep the ovaries producing eggs are there and doing their job. Amazing! I was amazed and so was Dr. Sobel!

The concern is two fold, 1) the amount of chemo I had, and 2) the type of chemo, specifically the Cisplatin. That's because Cisplatin is an alkaline based chemo, apparently bad for ovaries. All I understand of that is they make batteries out of alkaline, don't they? So I guess I can understand that pouring battery acid on an ovary would be a bad thing. That fucking Cisplatin - that's the drug that gave me the terrible reaction, remember? I legitimately thought I was going to die and Kristin had to save me! That drug is the worst - in more ways than one. However, the Cisplatin didn't win this time. Oh no, my ovaries are A-OK. So take that, Chemo!

The next issue is follicles. I know this is way more than most of you need to know, but I'm going to give you the gritty details anyway. After the good news about the ovaries, now we need to see if there are any follicles on them that would release eggs. Back to an ultrasound - the unfortunate procedure I've only had twice, which twice showed cancer instead of baby. This time, at least, I wasn't expecting to see a fetus - there ain't no room for that in the Cul-de-sac! But when he starts moving that wand around and the grey on the screen gets, well, more grey, I think I see an ovary. Obviously I have no idea what I am talking about because said grey spot isn't an ovary. It's a follicle! A follicle so big even I could make it out on the mish mosh of the screen! That ovary had 2 follicles. So instantly we knew the follicles were a go! Alleluia!

I'm thinking of the process like this: there are at least 10 hurdles between Chris and I ... and having a child that is biologically our own. We could get tripped up on any one of them and it's over. Adoption City, here we come. But so far, we cleared the first two hurdles! Incredible! See ... I told you to have hope and here it is!

The End Game is still a little wishy washy. I don't quite know where we go from here. There are some very specific biologic questions we have to ask the doctor at Sloan Kettering and the fertility clinic needs to ask a geneticist. We'll try to get some answers and go from there. For now, hope reigns supreme.