Lynn's Story Posted June 18, 2005 I was 21 years old when I found out I had breast cancer. I couldn't believe that it was happening to me. The next few years of my life I focused on remission. With all the drugs from chemotherapy, the doctors advised that I would have to wait 5 years after being told that I was in remission before trying to get pregnant. At the time, I thought little of it since I wasn't dating anyone. A year and a half after my initial dignosis of cancer, I met my husband. We fell in love on our first date. A year after being married we tried to get pregnant. As months passed and nothing was happening, I was worried that the chemotherapy had ruined all of my eggs. My husband and I decided after 9 months of trying we should see a RE to make sure everything was 'alright'. We went through all the testing and found out the my eggs were perfectly healthy and there was no problem with me. Then my husband had his sperm analysis and found that he had low sperm count, no motility and the morphology was not good either. We were told it would be highly unlikely that we could ever conceive naturally. At the same time, we were told that the only option available for us would be IVF but before we started an IVF cycle I would have to receive clearance from a breast oncologist. So, more testing continued with my breast oncologist to confirm I was still cancer free and there were no tumors lurking. He approved us for IVF treatment but only approved 3 cycles. He informed us that the drugs used for IVF can cause breast cancer and in my case could cause a recurrence. This was a lot on our shoulders. Not only were we informed that we could not have children but our options to try were limited to 3. We decided to try with our first IVF cycle, knowing that putting myself through this could cause cancer. But I was desparate! I wanted a biological baby of my own. Everyone around me was getting pregnant and as each friend would call with their good news, my spirits were being broken. Our first IVF cycle resulted in a pregnancy. I thought I was one of those lucky few that took only 1 IVF cycle to get pregnant. Unfortunately, this pregnancy was not ours to keep. After 7 weeks from that glorious day being told that we were pregnant, I miscarried. I was devastated. I couldn't believe that it happened to me. I thought that since I had beat cancer I wasn't allowed to have any more devastating things happen in my life. I was completely destroyed. My husband was very supportive and we grieved the loss of our little baby boy together...yes a boy...we received results from our D &C stating that they knew the sex of our baby. As each day passed after the miscarriage, another reminder of that horrible day would come up. A doctors bill, a note from a friend, parents calling to check up on us. The more 'reminders' we received the more I wanted to try another IVF cycle. We started our 2nd IVF cycle with the hopes that this one will result in a full term pregnancy. We are very realistic about our chances but we are praying that this one will work for us. Please keep us in your thoughts and prayers as we need all the help we can get. We hope to achieve our dreams along with everyone achieving theirs...