Easter Eggs

Growing up, I was not the sort of girl who couldn't wait to have kids. In my teens, I wondered if having children was not an ultimately selfish act in our overcrowded world and felt sorry for the countless women who battle every day to balance their roles as mothers with their myriad other positions. I've never stopped thinking about those things, but I do remember when that fabled maternal clock started ticking- LOUD. This wasn't a faint and gentle tick-tock; I began to feel like Alice's white rabbit: "I'm late, I'm late, I'm late!" Or rather, I suddenly realized and still believe to this moment, that I didn't just want children- I wanted a lot of them. "Cheaper by the Dozen" and "Yours, Mine, & Ours"- cutest movies ever. Twins? Triplets? Bring them on. Bradjelina's tribe: could you make me more jealous?

My grandma passed away last November. She was a mother of five amazing intelligent and loving children. In Chinese style, she was respected and spoiled in her old age. I thought, how wonderful it must be to have so many children, both to care for you and to be able to watch them develop into unique and accomplished individuals. My sisters are two of the strongest most special relationships in my life; what might it have been like to have even more siblings to cherish?

In 2005, thanks to a grant from the Avery Foundation, I traveled in China learning about the Chinese concept of "luck". One of the things I did there was get my fortune read. My i ching expert was a blind man who learned the art and trade of fortune telling to be able to support himself through his disability. He told me several things that rang true at the time and I chose to believe him when he told me that I had four children in my life's projection: two girls, two boys. How perfectly marvelous.

So, when, during Easter week here in 2008, I was told that I had four little eggs in my ovaries, I felt sure that these were my fated progeny.

But first, another flashback: I remember well when I was in the Emergency Room in Boston being rushed into treatment and a doctor apologized to me saying, "you should know that the chemotherapy you are about to undergo will most likely prevent you from ever having children". As he hovered over my gurney speeding down the hallway, he explained briefly that some people have time to store eggs, embryos, or sperm, but that for me, there simply wasn't any time.

Despite this heartbreaking news, we took various hopeful precautions, such as using "the shot" to protect my ova as best as possible from the toxic medicines I was taking. Studies for my age group were not conclusive: I'm not quite old enough for premature menopause to be a given, not quite young enough to be optimistic about the number of years of normal cycles I might still have. So, common with so many other unknowns related to this illness and treatment, I subconsciously chose not to mourn over a trajedy as yet unconfirmed.

A couple of weeks ago, during my hospitalized induction period here at Stanford, a doctor casually mentioned, "well, you know how you're going to be infertile after the required full body radiation, right?" No, I had not known that. Here it was, conclusive, unavoidable. I had kept a little campfire of hope and a sense of destiny burning in my chest and I actually felt like the wind was knocked out of me as my chest and eyes burned and I tried not to cry. There are thousands of things that could/should go wrong with my body, but few that I've been told will, without a doubt, without a wisp of hope.

Wait, you're saying, didn't you just say something about four little Easter eggies? Way to follow this convoluted time schematic, reader.

Ah, so with one month between chemo and transplant to pray to the fertilities goddesses, I turned to the Fertility Clinic at Stanford and asked them to do whatever they could to stimulate/examine/collect/harvest/protect/freeze/store any chance I might be able to have children in the future. I gave myself shots to induce ovulation and must say it was the first time I've ever been so excited to feel bloating! Through ultrasound technology, my doctor saw two little follicles in each ovary and my heart soared.

Then, at my next appointment, Dr. W was very quiet as she examined the ultrasound screen. To me, it was merely smeared black and white static. But, her silence and persistent search told me all I needed to know. With all the tact and compassion I could have hoped for, she explained that my ovaries were just "tired" from all the chemo I'd had, that they were "calm" and those four small bundles of hope from a few days ago had not developed any further. "Tired". "Calm". Pointless. Dead. It's hard to be 28 and have dreams dead.


Of course, I will adopt. Adoption was something I'd felt called to long before cancer. But, still, just like that unavoidable mysterious inner clock, I can't help but feel this profound and unshakable sense of loss.