It's just sort of one of those woe is me kind of days today.   I'm feeling beat up on all fronts, nauseous (from chemo) and just downright sad.  This whole infertility discussion from the weekend really hit me hard, and I'm in the early stages of mourning the possibility of never having a biological child of my own.  My heart still holds some hope deep down amongst the heartache, but I have to be realistic.  As each day passes, the fact of the matter is that this is becoming real. Too real.

Josh and I had an appointment with Dr. Phipps in reproductive health today, and also touched base at the BMT clinic with Dr. Burns when I was in there to get my growth hormone shot of the day.  Dr. Burns is the one who initially brought up the infertility conversation so she wanted to know how everything went.   The result of the appointment is that there is nothing Dr. Phipps can do for me at this time.  Being that I just had chemo, the harvesting of eggs isn't an option.  It can take weeks, and we'd need to wait for the toxic drugs to get out of my system along with side effects which can take a few months.  With the timing of the transplant, I don't have months to wait.  He said my best option at this time would be to suppress my ovaries through the use of birth control pills, and to also see if there is a study at the U that I could be a part of.  As it turns out, there is actually one study currently available for young females in their reproductive years going through transplant, but the kicker is that your F-SH's need to be within a certain range.  F-SH stands for Follicle-Stimulating Hormones that stimulate the growth of the egg-bearing follicles in your ovaries.  The highest F-SH level to participate in this study through the U is 40, and I'm at 59.  59 is crazy high for someone my age.   This is a number that's more acceptable for someone in her 40's/50's who's menopausal.  My body is literally trying to put me into early menopause.

The normal ranges for females look something like this -

• Before puberty: 0 - 4.0 mIU/ml
• During puberty: 0.3 - 10.0 mIU/ml
• Women who are menstruating: 4.7 - 21.5 mIU/ml
• Postmenopausal: 25.8 - 134.8 mIU/ml

So where does this leave us?  Really at this time, all I can do is continue taking the birth control pills, and right before the transplant itself takes place, my F-SH levels will be tested again to see if they've dropped down to 40 or below making me eligible for the study.  The likelihood of this happening is small, but this is where the HOPE part comes into play.  Per Dr. Phipps, sometimes the F-SH's can be elevated with treatments and what not, so there is a chance they could go down.  Unfortunately my F-SH's were tested on Friday before this last round of the ICE chemo even started, which means whatever chances I have are slim.

There really isn't much more we can do at this point except to continue down the path we're on with this transplant.  I need to try to focus on getting better and beating this cancer crap to a pulp so I can tackle the topic of parenthood.  What is meant to be will be, right?