To Freeze or not to freeze?

The chances of me still being able to conceive another child after Chemo is relatively high 70/30% however because we were so sure we wanted another child we wanted to look into the options available to us to increase our chances.

So I went to see a man called Dr Banagee at Lister yesterday in the Gynae ward in regards to freezing my eggs.
(It should be mentioned at this point that although in my last post I put that I had to wait another 2 years following my Herceptin treatment at the time of meeting with this Doctor I was under the impression it was only a couple of months we needed to wait).

The options available to us are
1 - freezing my eggs - apparently very old school and has a very low sucess rate of actually producing babies at the end of it.

2 - IVF - having my eggs and Jay's sperm clinically fertilised and the embryo being frozen. A much higher sucess rate but a bit more difficult in the lead up for me.

Because we already have a child the NHS will not fund either option for us. It would be a cost in the region of £5k (The money isn't an issue at this stage as my insurance cheque is still in the bank, however it starts to become a different question when we are now talking about 4 years further down the line).

Its true I have always wanted 2 children, but anyone that knows me at all knows I ALWAYS said I wanted them close together. Amber will be nearing on 7 by the time I give birth to the next baby (and thats if I fall straight away) this is not my idea of close (or practical).

Jay and I had some very long and deep conversations last night and have decided that we do not want to put my body through any more treatments at this stage and if at the end of my treatment we still feel that we want a child we are happy to leave that decision up to nature. Yes it's not perfect but I've started to realise through all of this that I can't control everything and once in a while you just need to take it as it comes.

This is a huge decision and a very emotional one to make but we both feel it is the right one for us. We know there will be some friends and family members that will think we have made the wrong decision but we ask that you respect this as something that only we can decide.

This is not a flat out we're not having any more children moment, this is a lets see what happens, we very much doubt that we will want another child that much further down the line and don't feel it is necessary to go through a voluntarily stressful circle of events after everything I will already have been through.

I appreciate this post is extremely personal and apologies if I have given more information that you need or want from this blog. However I have found this the hardest entry to write and feel better for getting it out onto the page.

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