Hi!

Thank you for visiting and welcome. I am a regular 41-year-old female, with a rather irregular story. Some years ago, "Like Water Through Bellows" came to my mind when I was lying on a cold medical examination table. I was strapped to an ECG to be monitored for tachycardia (a highly elevated heart rate), as a side-effect of the chemotherapy I was undergoing for breast cancer. I had been diagnosed at 33 years old, after a 3-year fight with infertility. Having been thus discouraged, cancer was now steadily removing all my basic abilities, expectations, and privileges. It was about the lowest point in my life.

I was sick, cold, confused, miserable, and alone, and yet, that was also the moment that I most felt God's presence. When the ECG came on, I heard the reassuring, steady whoosh-whoosh of my heartbeat and it sounded like water through bellows. In the months that followed, I would sometimes just lay and listen to my heartbeat, because it was the only constant amidst the madness of the changes and emotions. I realized that the message- was that as long as my heart was beating, as long as I could hear this sound, it was not over yet. I would have to live and fight to live well.

This is the story of not fertility, not cancer,
but really the arc of one human life…

from my earlier adventures to the depths of depression and difficulties in treatment and recovery to the two surrogacies that we embarked on in 2016 and 2019 that resulted in our current parenting of not one, but two sets of twins!

I often asked myself- there are so many fertility blogs and so many cancer blogs, what could we really add to the narrative? As our journey unfolded, I don't think that way anymore- our story is extremely unique and actually incorporates a much longer story that includes what we have lived through, and how we live now.

While people often talk about cancer and chemotherapy as frightening, I would say that by far more frightening, is the decision to become a mother after cancer. I'm sure any post-cancer parent, would have reservations about what happens if I should die before I wake, or before they are grown. Through cancer, I have seen so many examples, of experiences, thoughts and memories not recorded, when that is all that families have left.

This story is for them to know, that it was a very conscious decision on our part, to have them be part of our lives. It is to remind them of the joy and gratitude with which we have lived and loved, and how much they, and our surrogate families, restored our faith in this world. No matter what happens, I want them to pick up and carry on with their own responsibilities and opportunities, in the same security and spirit.

I know that we have been, very, very, lucky. I hope that if you read this while you are suffering, it is of some comfort, and I would like to extend that message of hope and help, to other people. During this time, I have worked to help found a non-profit NGO to provide peer support for those journeying with infertility, as well as a young women's breast cancer support group with the Breast Cancer Foundation. I strongly believe that resources need to be improved for young survivors and that cancer is increasingly becoming a chronic disease that more and more young people will have to manage, live through, live past and live well with, over time.

We have always been very open with our fertility struggles, cancer treatment recommendations and our surrogacies. However, we have received so many inquiries to help, counsel or guide other young women and couples, but we can only do so, one person at a time. I preferred to meet them personally, which was becoming very time-consuming, and so I dreamt about creating a platform where we could reach and help more people. "