The beginning of our story

In July of 2000 I married my husband Kevin. We were a normal newlywed couple and as we were not quite ready for children at that point we were on birth control. In November of 2000 I took myself off of the birth control because I was going crazy from it. I decided that if we ended up getting pregnant then so be it. Weeks and then months passed and nothing happened. I had heard that sometimes it can take up to a year for the effects of the birth control to leave your body. I figured we had time.

In July of 2001, Kevin went in for a check up appointment with his oncologist. He had been diagnosed and treated for Hodgkin’s Lymphoma three years before we got married and still had follow up appointments to make sure that everything was still ok. A few days before our first year anniversary the oncologist called him up and asked him to come in on our anniversary to discuss something to do with the check up, Kevin told him that we would come in the day after, as it was our anniversary.

So the day after we celebrated our first year of being married we went in to the oncologist and sat down. He broke the news to us telling us that a mass the size of a salt shaker had been found in Kevin’s chest. They would have to do some tests and a biopsy but there was a chance that the previous bout of cancer had come back. If this was the case then they would have to take a more aggressive approach to treating it than they had before.

This was terrible news for both of us, but we pressed on. Kevin was tested, and biopsied and it was found that it was indeed the same cancer come back. And so Kevin was treated for it. He was given chemotherapy, radiation and a bone marrow transplant. Before all this happened though the doctor took Kevin aside and suggested that he bank some sperm, because with a bone marrow transplant sterilization risks were at 90%.

So Kevin went down to andrology lab and banked 12 vials of semen. We were sat down and told about our options for the future, told the rates for having our semen vials stored there, and told good luck with everything.

A year later Kevin had made it through all his treatments, and was doing fine. I was no longer on birth control, and we were trying for babies. We knew that the chance that Kevin was sterilized were good, but we hoped beyond hope that the cheap and easy way might still work for us. At the time we were still in college and the rates for in vetro fertilization were way out of our price range.

Eight years later found us still childless, but now living in a different state where Kevin was working for a company that provided excellent health insurance options. Finally, after so many years of waiting we could finally afford to have a child, we could finally afford the cost to get pregnant.

In 2009 I began taking the first steps toward trying for a pregnancy. This is my story of our journey in the pursuit of having children and starting a family. We have wanted children our entire marriage and despite all odds we will work to have them.