Friday, May 21, 2010

Hope for Cancer Patients

I decided that I couldn't help my sister-in-law much one-on-one since she's in ID, I'm GA. However, I knew that having a 2nd kid had been on her mind, and she's worried what this cancer will do not only to the length of her life, but also the size of her family.
 
Those of us in the IF world understand the pain and difficulty that come with dreams of fertility. I can't imagine what it woudl be like to add the fear of my own death to my planning. I'm very sad for her and my brother, and their baby son. The whole thing is just such a shock...
 
So, I wrote my RE, and I got this in response from my VERY FAVORITE PA:
 
...the best thing for her to do is to contact Fertile Hope (an organization that provides support to cancer patients who are interested in fertility preservation). Fertile Hope provides free medication undergoing IVF for fertility preservation. They are affiliated with Serono Pharmaceuticals who makes Gonal f that is used for IVF stimulation.
 
Fertile Hope is affiliated with certain IVF centers (our clinic is one of them) who will discount IVF cycles for cancer patients. Not all IVF centers are connected with Fertile Hope. That's why I think she should call them directly to see which centers in her area are associated with Fertile Hope so she can limit her out of pocket expense. Her oncologist may also know which IVF center to refer her to.
 
Fertile Hope info:
www.fertilehope.org
866-965-7205
 
Doing my own research into Cancer and Fertility, I found another site that I thought would be VERY useful for those that already have a pregnancy in progress and are looking for information and support. This site was started by a survivor of cancer while pregnant. 
 
 
 

1 comment:

Geohde said...

Thank you for posting this. Also, thank you for being kind enough to leave me a comment. A helpful one. I really appreciate that sort of thing and I now also have a resource to add to my IF ist should a friend ever be in this situation,

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