Fertility Preservation During Breast Cancer: ‘I Would Do It All Again’

For Silvia Davis, a breast cancer diagnosis in January 2020 at age 36 set her on a fertility preservation journey that ultimately led to the birth of her son, John, who is now two and a half years old.

“Because of the cancer, I was not as focused on the result of the fertility treatments,” said Davis, who received care at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York. “Your brain can only handle so much. It’s a complex process to make all these big life decisions, but looking back, though, I would do it all again.”

Davis, who was diagnosed with stage 2A estrogen receptor-positive, progesterone receptor-positive, and HER2-positive invasive ductal carcinoma, sat down for an interview with CURE to discuss her fertility preservation experience.

Transcript

What was your fertility preservation experience like?

I had to make some quick decisions in those weeks prior to my surgery about fertility, because it was possible that I could not have children afterwards. We had about a week, which is pretty crazy when you think about it, to decide if we were going to take part in fertility treatments. I was 36 at the time. My husband and I had made some pretty intentional decisions for work to go further in our careers. My husband was working for TED in Manhattan, and I had taken this step into administration.

It's funny, because all at once, it seemed like all those careful decisions just didn't matter, because we had to decide if we were going to financially take on this challenge. At the time, insurance did not take part in any of that, because it wasn't infertility, it was fertility preservation, and it was just a week to decide. And it's funny, fast-forwarding now to my two-and-a-half-year-old son, in a week we decided we were going to have him. But we made that decision, and I did my fertility treatments to have my eggs taken out, and then we did the embryo freezing and all that.

My husband and I had made some decisions. We decided to wait to have children until we were in this better financial space, and we lived in Philadelphia, and then we moved to this next phase of our life. And so we were fortunate where we had better finances. We worked with RMA, which did their best to give us as many things and credits as they could due to cancer being the reason for fertility treatments. I talked to friends of ours when we were trying to figure out what we were going to do, and friends of ours had done a gestational carrier for their second child. They were telling us about the timeline and the cost and the attorney fees and all the things you have to do to have a gestational carrier.

My husband is such a responsible person, he was taking notes, and I just remember tears streaming down my face, laying on the couch, being so overwhelmed and thinking, "Is this the way that I'm going to do this? I don't know if I could do that. Is that what I want? How do I figure all this out?" And then understanding that once I start fertility treatment, none of that is guaranteed. They're all percentages; they get better and better, but it's all not guaranteed.

It's such an overwhelming process, and just trying to understand it all and know what you're going through. It was pretty taxing too, just giving yourself shots every day and all the things that you have to do for something that's five years down the road, maybe, because maybe it doesn't work. I have a lot of people I know at this point who have done fertility treatments, and it's just such a physically taxing and stressful process. I would go to do my monitoring. I'd have to drive to one of the RMA centers every morning at 6 a.m. to have my blood drawn so they could decide what the next shot would be.

I remember looking around one day and looking at all the other women there, and thinking that I felt like the most fortunate person because I didn't have infertility. I had fertility preservation, which felt like a better shot at it all, and just seeing the hope and the want. Because of the cancer, I was not as focused on the result of the fertility treatments. Your brain can only handle so much, so it's a pretty complex process to make all these big life decisions. But I look back now, and I would do it all again.

My son just started school in August. He's at our two-year-old program at my school, and so I get to see him doing all these amazing things, and it's just weird how heavy it was and what the end result is.

Transcript has been edited for clarity and conciseness.

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