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Fighting for Fertility During Serious Health Issues
From Tragedy to Triumph
By Teri Brown
Tracy Rasmussen of Pottstown, Pa., thought conceiving children was going to be a breeze, but Rasmussen and her husband began having fertility problems soon after trying to conceive. Eventually, it was determined that she had endometriosis.
"I thought I had a lot of time to conceive, so we tried some conventional therapies to shrink the endometriomas (the tumors associated with endometriosis) but it didn't work, so I was recommended for surgery," Rasmussen says. "The surgeon told me that he might have to do a hysterectomy if things looked really bad."
Though they didn't have to take her uterus or ovaries in that surgery, a second surgery took one of her ovaries and left the other one unable to function. Rasmussen had been sure that the second surgery was going to work, and once it became clear she wasn't going to be able to conceive on her own, she was devastated.
"I felt horrible," says Rasmussen, who is now the adoptive mother of twins. "I was depressed and cried a good deal of the time. I'm sure the hormonal imbalance caused by my very sudden and early menopause didn't help, but I was devastated."
"The potential of infertility was more devastating than my cancer diagnosis," Beck says. "Although life threatening, cancer was temporary and treatable. Infertility, on the other hand, was incurable and permanent. It had the potential to drastically change the rest of my life and in addition to cancer seemed unfair and impossible."
Want to see more?
- When Life Is a Pain: The Facts on Endometriosis
- Fertile Hope: Cancer Patients and Fertility
- Fertility and Disabilities: A Profile of Dr. Mitchell S. Tepper
- Join the discussion on our Family.com community!
- Pregnancy After Breast Cancer: Short Stories About Pregnancy
- Pregnancy After Breast Cancer: One Woman's Experience
- The Price of Parenthood: 4 Steps to Financing Fertility
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