Third Strand Baby Tatum
“In June of 2019, at the age of 34 my doctor said the words that no one at any age wants to hear. You have cancer. Hormone positive breast cancer. The thing that made me a woman was also trying to kill me. I was devasted and ready to FIGHT! The first step was to get my hormonal birth control removed and in the same week meet with the fertility doctor and start the process to freeze my eggs. At the time I was single and I knew I wanted children of my own but I also knew time was ticking, my biological clock and the cancer clock, we needed to start treatment ASAP. Flooding my body with the hormones that were fueling my tumor was terrifying, giving myself several shots a day, alone, was heart breaking. I managed to tough it out and I was able to retrieve 13 eggs! Now to start chemo.
I had recently re-connected with a high school crush. He ended up becoming my rock through all of this. We were barely dating and he was at every chemo and doctor's appointment. I did not have to ask anything of him, he just showed up when I needed it the most. Heaven sent for sure. I ended up needing 6 rounds of chemo. I completed those in November (got engaged!) and scheduled my double mastectomy for December. Also, through all of this, my mother was actively dying of lung cancer. I believe she was waiting around long enough to make sure my health and my heart were taken care of.
My surgery was a success but my tumor did not completely react to chemo. Because of this, in January of 2020 I started 14 rounds of immunotherapy, not as rough on the body as chemo, but still not fun. Covid was in full swing and I was having to go to treatments alone. The cancer center is always a depressing place but cancer patients having to go to treatments by themself was terrible. With my mother declining rapidly and Covid closing down the world, we were able to do an extremely small ceremony in my parents back yard and we were married in April. My mother passed away in August. I was in a truly dark place but I was determined not to give up.
In January I had also started a drug to suppress my hormones and to discourage the cancer from reoccurring. This is standard practice for hormone positive breast cancer. It was hard, the drug almost puts you in menopause. In your mid-thirties that is hard for many different reasons. My oncologist said I would need to be on it for 5 years, I wanted babies and I was not getting any younger. I found a study where women of child bearing age stayed on this drug for a minimum of 18mths and were able to take a break and have children that showed no evidence of increasing the chances of reoccurrence. I was elated! I took this information to my oncologist and informed her, not asked, that I would be coming off of this medication in October of 2021. There is a 3 month “wash out” period before trying to conceive and we were ready!
We conceived in April of 2022 and I am due January 1st, 2023. I had heard about Third Strand through a Babies after Breast Cancer group and flew to the website to check them out. I was so tickled to find out they were a faith-based organization. Once again, I knew it was Heaven sent.”
