Lorraine’s IVF Pregnancy at 44 After Fibroids & Breast Cancer

On episode 86, Lorraine was born and raised in Azusa, California. She lives there with her 15-month old healthy boy and husband. Lorraine was engaged to another man in her 30’s. They were not actively trying to conceive, but she knew something wasn’t quite working. She realized that when she was in her mid 30’s. At 37, she had a consultation with the fertility doctor. Then her fiancé was diagnosed with colon cancer, and everything changed. Her fiancé passed away after an 11-month battle. Cancer was something she never thought she could be strong enough to handle.

She took the next few years to grieve her loss. About two years later, she met her now husband a bit before she turned 40. They clicked right away and knew he was the one. He was five years older than her and neither of them had children. Because of her age, she felt like the window for motherhood was closing. At 40, she told her him they might need fertility treatments if they wanted to have a family, and he was on board right away. They were together about a year when she had an egg retrieval. She was able to retrieve 10 eggs, and they created three embryos. She wanted to test the embryos for abnormalities, so her family pitch in financially for the testing. She also found out with the testing she had two boys and one girl. The two boys were the best quality embryos. She was very excited to move forward with an embryo transfer. Her fertility doctor suggested the transfer may not be successful with the fibroids in her uterus. He recommended having them removed, letting her uterus heal for six months and then proceeding with an embryo transfer. She trusted her doctor and agreed to have the surgery. At 41, she had 12 fibroids of all different sizes removed. She took the next six months to plan a wedding, get married, and enjoy a honeymoon in Hawaii. She planned to have the embryo transfer when she came back from the honeymoon.

Lorraine likes to plan all of her standard doctors appointments at the same time and towards the end of the year. She remembers getting a reminder in the mail to schedule her mammogram. She was so busy planning the wedding and in baby-mode, she almost ignored it. She went in for a typical mammogram right before her wedding, and they called her back to say they saw something they wanted to take another look at. She wasn’t worried because this has happened in the past. Lorraine didn’t tell anyone because she didn’t want anyone to worry during her wedding. She had a wonderful wedding, but the biopsy was on her mind during the honeymoon. The same day she came back from Hawaii was the day she went in for the biopsy. Two days later, she got the call. She had invasive ductal carcinoma, a breast cancer. She denied having it and told him she was about to do a transfer. She couldn’t have it. Luckily, it was caught early. She didn’t have to do chemo, but she opted for a bilateral mastectomy. She had already had some lumps removed from her right breast and the cancer was in the left. She wanted to do both because she didn’t want to take a chance because she already had scars and surgeries on the right. At 41, Lorraine had a bilateral mastectomy with reconstruction. She spent a year and a half on Tamoxifen. Her doctor told it it’s a hormone blocking medicine that women are on to make sure there’s no reoccurrence. Her oncologist knew of her plans to create a family. He wanted her to take the medication for two years and then reassess where she was at. Lorraine’s mental state during that time was spent frustrated. She felt it was so unfair, but she didn’t give up hope. She knew inside her that motherhood was waiting. At 43, after 16 months of being on the drug, she told her doctor she would really like to try an embryo transfer. He gave her the okay to stop taking the drug, but told her she needed to wait six months to let the drug get out of her body.

At 43 and six months of waiting, she had one of her three embryos transferred which was a boy. Her HCG levels were good and high, but she lost the pregnancy at about six weeks. The miscarriage was a very big surprise to her and her doctor. The loss was really tough on Lorraine. She knew she had two more embryos and didn’t want to give up. Her fertility doctor suggested Lorraine have a few more regular periods before doing a second transfer. She did acupuncture before and after the transfer and continued for a while. At 44, on Friday the 13^th, she had a second embryo transferred which was the other boy. The two-week wait was hard because the miscarriage was still on her mind. She was a little more reserved about being excited and a little more reserved getting her hopes up this time. She remembers taking a home pregnancy test before the beta and it showed positive. She wasn’t as anxious but her beta HGC numbers were good again. She was pregnant but waited a lot longer to tell people this time around. The call confirming that she was pregnant was bittersweet because she felt like she just had a call like that, and it didn’t work out. Getting past six weeks was more stressful than the two week wait for her, but she saw the heartbeat at six weeks. She continued to have such great appointments and he was growing. She remembers the anatomy scan because they saw his foot and he kept covering his face. She didn’t get any cute facial shots.

Lorraine’s pregnancy at 44 went pretty well. She had a lot of heartburn and ate a lot of Tums. She was conscious about when and what she ate because it would give her heartburn. There was a tremendous amount of swelling in her feet and legs. She had to order special shoes with Velcro and extra-large socks. They monitored her blood pressure towards the end because she was teetering on pre-eclampsia. Because they opened her up like a c-section for the previous fibroid surgery, she always knew the delivery would be a c-section. There wasn’t really a lot of anxiety for labor. She wanted a specific date in January, but she ended up with pre-eclampsia and having the c-section a week and half before that.

At 36 weeks, she remembers going to the doctor appointment with her hospital bag with a really bad headache. Her blood pressure was all over the place. She had a feeling she had pre-eclampsia and this could be it. The doctor told her the baby was over six points and wasn’t worried about him. The doctor was worried about Lorraine and wanted to perform the c-section. She went straight from her appointment to the hospital. The nurse came in and she mentioned something about contractions. Lorraine was confused because she didn’t have them. Then the nurse left and she came back to record them so she could see for herself. The nurse showed her the monitor right when she had another contraction. At 2:30pm, she thought she would settle into her room and have the c-section the next day. Soon afterwards, the doctor walks in with scrubs for her husband and announces the c-section was scheduled for 4:30pm. She was shocked this was happening in two hours. Her blood pressure was really high.

She was very nervous about lactation nurses coming in her room that didn’t know she didn’t have breast tissue. She didn’t want to feel sadness or disappointment, but it didn’t happen. They wheeled her in for the c-section, and they were playing some crazy music which wasn’t the playlist she gave them. Everything happened so quickly. She didn’t feel anything. Her husband stayed right by her head as the c-section was being performed. They pulled her baby out and showed him over the sheet that was blocking her view. She was emotional and said, “Hi, my baby.” Her husband was the first one to hold their son. Then they took him to another area as he cried. It really wasn’t a bad experience. They wheeled her into another area after she was sown up to see him. She didn’t get to hold him for quite a while. She was shocked at the contractions she was having afterwards. Her husband handled the first night. Lorraine wasn’t able to move around or do much. She had the c-section on a Wednesday and Lorraine went home the following Sunday.

Her recovery was good but slow. It still took almost a month for the swelling in her feet to come back to normal. She already knew what the pain and recovery was going to be like because the fibroid surgery was so similar. It wasn’t a bad recover. She still has to monitor her blood pressure which went back up fairly quickly. Mentally, she was good and didn’t feel like she was depressed. She had a long talk with her husband and decided to quit her job and stay home with her son for his first year.

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Lorraine on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lolo_journey78