Campaign Story

My name is Rebecca Doran. My husband Zech and I were thrown into this lovely world of infertility three years ago. My story starts near the end of 2018, I was 28 and had started my first job as a new RN working nights at a skilled nursing facility. My husband and I had the financial stability and decent insurance and we felt it was a great time to start a family. Unfortunately, I had been having painful symptoms in my lower abdomen for about a year and knew that this warranted seeing a doctor. I assumed it was nothing concerning since I was young, otherwise healthy, and have healthy parents and relatives.
My first obgyn found a mass that December but was unconcerned. He advised I wait another few months and have another ultrasound. I was in so much pain, night and day, that I got a second opinion with another obgyn, who offered surgical removal of the mass. He said, “I’m sure it’ll be benign, but since its causing you so much pain lets just remove it.”
On February 27th, 2019 days after my surgery, I was called back into my doctor’s office for a same-day appointment (which is never a good sign). It was then that I was told I had cancer. I had ovarian cancer. I was in shock. My doctor looked like he wanted to cry; he said he was so surprised he called pathology himself. It all seemed very surreal. There really aren’t words for how devastated Zech and I were – we felt like our world had just crumbled right in front of our eyes.

My surgeon rushed to get my debulking surgery done because my life did depend on how quickly the rest of the cancer would be removed from my body. Fertility sparing options were limited – I was quickly referred to an out of network fertility clinic and told that egg retrieval could be possible, but would risk spreading cancer cells further to deeper tissues. On top of that, we would need to pay $10k up front and I would start injections that same day, otherwise we would need to delay my surgery. I say that we “chose” to not pursue fertility sparing but, what kind of choice is it, really – cancer chose for me.
2019 passed in a blur of CT scans, more bad news, more surgeries, 6 rounds of high-dose chemotherapy pumped into my veins, countless lab draws and bottles of pills. At one point I was so immunocompromised I was hospitalized for septic shock. I felt there would be no way I would live to see my 30th birthday.
But somehow, I made it. I pulled through. Before the end of 2019 I was told I had no evidence of disease. Labs and scans were clear. It was done.
For the first two years following the worst year of my life, I (and my husband Zech) tried to look ahead to better things. We deeply desire children, and while I was not able to spare any eggs, we found a wonderful egg donor. Once I hit my 2 year mark with no recurrence, we moved forward and signed on with a surrogacy agency. A friend of ours offered to carry for us, with no charge. It seemed like things were moving in the right direction. Then, about a year into this process, our carrier backed out – within a month from when we expected to have a transfer. Now we have to come up with surrogate fees we had not planned on needing to pay. Its been quite overwhelming and we are trying to save money wherever possible.

Our story, I’m sure, is one of many hurting intended parents who ache for their future child. Cancer stole so much from us, but we have not given up hope that we can one day become parents. Thank you so much for reading our story.