At 23, I faced infertility from chemo. I refused to freeze my eggs

THREE KEY FACTS
OPINION
As a young breast cancer patient, I thought fertility treatments sounded horrendous. I never planned to have biological kids, writes Rachel Hunt.
Since I was a teenager, I’ve had recurring dreams about my anxiety over pregnancy. It didn’t matter that it was impossible: I had an irrational fear I would wake up with a baby in my arms and no clue what to do.
Three main factors terrified me: the pain and uncertainty, for starters. My brothers and I were delivered via Caesarean section, and we were all born early, my youngest brother seven weeks so. My mother struggled to get pregnant with him.
The second, my genetics. I won the lottery on health issues: bad teeth, bad eyes, sensitive skin and mental health issues, just to name a few. I wasn’t fond of the idea I’d have to put another human being through that, too.
The wider societal implications were the third reason. As a member of Gen Z, I grew up with bar charts demonstrating rapid overpopulation and scientists warning us that environmental devastation was imminent. I saw what the Great Recession did to my family, our college funds lost along with the three houses we had. I knew the economy could be rocky, and raising a child would be expensive.
I never liked the expectation I should have children because I’m a woman. I never had a list of baby names or a dream nursery in mind. In high school, I worked as a gymnastics coach, and though I found some of the kids cute, they drove me up the wall. I didn’t understand how some women could look at babies and feel like they needed one, let alone wanted one.
Then, when I was 23 years old, I found out I had cancer. At the same time, I found out I had two weeks to save my eggs before I started chemotherapy, which can affect fertility by killing active cells in the reproductive organs.
I immediately decided against freezing my eggs.
My doctors and family members couldn’t comprehend my quick response. To them, it seemed like I hadn’t fully considered it. What if I regretted my choice by the time I turned 30? Who would take care of me when I was old? But my mind has been made up since I was 15.
Still, I did my due diligence. I met with a fertility doctor who explained the process: multiple injections, ultrasounds and a painful egg retrieval. I’d do in vitro fertilisation, without the “fertilisation” part. I’d have to pay to keep my eggs frozen every year, though I could find financial assistance. There was no guarantee about how many eggs could be retrieved, if any.
I watched a woman my age with Hodgkin’s lymphoma, Kam Schalk, document the process on YouTube. Everything about it sounded horrendous. Schalk experienced excruciating pain, though she said in her video caption that she was thankful she could do it.
But as a breast cancer patient, I already felt like my body wasn’t my own — subject to painful, invasive and exposing procedures. I don’t like needles, and I didn’t want to put myself through more of that.
Plus, as someone with hormone-receptor-positive cancer, I have to take medication that shuts off my estrogen production for 10 years so it doesn’t feed cancerous cells. If I do get pregnant in the near future, my doctor told me I’m at an increased risk of cancer recurrence as the hormones flood my body again.
Because of my age, it’s possible my reproductive system could bounce back, but there are no guarantees. I still don’t know where I stand.
The fears I had as a teenager remain, but there’s even more to consider now. My cancer isn’t hereditary, but another disorder I have could be. Plus, I can’t see myself affording a house to start a family anytime soon.
I’m not opposed to adopting or fostering one day, if I change my mind, though I’ve heard some agencies won’t let you until you hit your five-year remission milestone.
I realise I’m privileged. I had the time to make a choice. I could delay my chemotherapy, and I was healthy enough to undergo the egg retrieval process if I had wanted to. I don’t have a partner to consider. I know it’s not the same for others, not to mention those who struggle with infertility for other reasons.
Despite this being my choice, I’ve had to come to terms with the idea that infertility due to cancer is still infertility. Sometimes, I do feel like a lesser woman because I don’t want kids. I don’t regret my decision, but I know I could one day.
At the same time, I wonder whether my lifelong apathy toward having biological children was preparing me for this moment. In the barrage of things cancer took away from me, my fertility was one less thing to mourn.