Ongoing treatment and pregnancy

Hi Primrose01, welcome to the online community and congratulations on your pregnancy. Sorry to hear about  your partner's health. 

To answer your question about being mad to go ahead with this- personally I don't think so but that's only my opinion. There's worse things in life than a wee pair of feet and sometimes these things happen for a reason. I have two grown up children and feel if you wait until the "right time" it never really comes- there's always something to save up for, another holiday to go on or a new car or something. So no time is a right or a wrong time in my book.

I can see that having a baby and even being pregnant so soon after your partner has gone through treatment for his brain tumour will bring its own challenges and only you know if this is something you are both ready to face. Talk it over with family and friend and your partner's medical team but at the end of the day its your decision. 

Macmillan Support Services also offer lots of helpful information, support, financial guidance or just someone to listen. It’s free to call 0808 808 0000. Most services are available 8am to 8pm, 7 days a week. Have a look by Clicking here to see what is available and we also have our Ask an Expert section, but do allow two to three working days for replies from our expert team.

Hang in there. Stay strong.

sending you both huge virtual hugs

Wee Me xx

Hi,

I don't think you're mad for continuing with the pregnancy, far from it. 

We were in a similar position, aside from the fact that I am the woman in our (heterosexual) marriage and I had already had brain surgery. We then were "allowed" a break in order to try to conceive (which we were fortunate enough to do within a few months) and then I started my year of radio and PCV chemo when our son was 7 months old back in autumn 2019. Obviously, when we started we were relying on having family stay with us to help out with childcare whilst I took (a very generous package of full pay) sick leave from work and essentially extended my maternity leave. My husband also did 3 months of shared parental leave to cover the daily radiotherapy and the first PCV cycle. When COVID hit, I'd just started cycle 2 of 6 and that meant that I was on the ECV list, our parents couldn't come to stay and help out, and I was the sole carer for our 12 month old. However, we got through it and you will get through it too - as it turned out, our baby was a life line for me as it meant that I had a purpose/focus that wasn't chemo and I did as much as I could in terms of remaining "normal" taking him to groups (when they were open) and going to playgrounds, the park etc. We worked it so that my husband took the initial 3 days off when I had the BIG tablet [they'd stopped giving me the drip due to COVID, but apparently that is the "least" effective anyway!) as that made me quite sick, and then I did everything from about day 4 of week 1 because aside from feeling tired, I didn't have too many noticeable side affects. The only thing was that my platelet counts got very low and I ended up having only 5/6 and my chemo just abruptly ended with a phone call... which is actually how most people have ended and I've heard since that it's fairly rare to get to 6/6 cycles and the average is 3-4. You will likely need to do everything with baby for a few days at the start of each cycle, and then he will be able to help out for the remaining 5 weeks until the next one starts. I don't know how far pregnant you are so therefore how old baby will be by the time he finishes, but honestly, having a baby within the chemo mix was really really helpful to us. I imagine that even just being pregnant for the first time will also be a way to see beyond the chemo and focus on the future, even though I wouldn't be as crass as to "recommend" it as an ideal time, but then realistically, when is the ideal time to have a baby or to do chemo??  

I'd say the hardest parts about it are judgement from others ("why did you get pregnant if you know you've got cancer and are going to die?") which we've just either ignored or tackled head on ("why did you get pregnant when you could be hit by a bus and die tomorrow?") and also being told by health care professionals that I should "stay away" from my baby due to my weak immune system, although that was when COVID was very new. The hardest part (for me) was having mum friends who were diagnosed with cancer when their babies were very young question why we went ahead and got pregnant knowing that I had a [low grade] brain tumour, because I felt like they would have been the most likely people to see that life goes on when actually I've found them to be very judgemental. Aside from that, you just need to think about practicalities in a greater way to most people which I guess you've already done anyway as a result of the brain tumour - we are the most clued up of our friends when it comes to life assurance, pensions, savings, wills, guardianships etc, simply because we've been forced to think about these things in our early 30s. 

The only other thing to think about is the impact on his fertility post chemo, as mine has taken a real bashing and it is highly highly unlikely that I will be able to get pregnant again without an egg donor, which we do not want to do. You mention that you have gone through the process of making sure it was/is an option, but I don't know whether you mean just having a conversation or doing embryo storage for IVF at a later date. We were offered that after our successful pregnancy and declined it as we decided that we wanted to focus on our baby and if he was meant to be an only child then that was fine with us, and they'd said it was highly unlikely that I would end up infertile due to the type of chemo, my age, low BMI, non smoker etc but that has been ultimately what has happened... so had we not gone ahead with trying to get pregnant and delaying chemo (which you're not even talking about doing!) then our life would be so different, so for us, having a child in the midst of chemo was the best decision we made. My scans since finishing chemo have all been positive and there's very little/no regrowth, so it's just a waiting game now and holding onto hope that we will be ok for the foreseeable future, even if I know that deep down I am unlikely to be here when he's a teenager and into adulthood. But we shall see! :)

Good luck, and enjoy making memories!