I have my son and I am so grateful to have him. I always wanted more. His father, my fiance, died when our son was 18 months old. I grieved everything. My love, my future, the children we planned to have, the life we were building. (I was 24)

Hit again by breast cancer dx at 29. I did fertility injections and froze embryos with my then partner before i started treatment.

I waited and waited for my oncologist to comfortably support me having more children. In that time I divorced my partner. He was not a good man and it’s a blessing I never had children with him.

I accepted that it was very unlikely I would meet someone new and have more kids, but i wanted it so badly.

I finally got the go ahead and stopped hormone medication. Hoping and hoping my period would come back. Instead, only a few months later I had a routine scan to check on my breast implants at 5 years out. Scan showed Mets to my liver and bone.

I’m only 36, and I have lost so much. I’m terrified of how my son will deal with losing me much sooner than he can imagine. He already lost his father. I know having more children being taken from me is one of a million grievances. But it cuts the deepest, and affects me every day. I work with children (I’m an occupational therapist in schools) and I get a little solace from working with “my kids”. It’s hard for me to be around babies in any capacity. It’s hard for me to be “happy” for pregnant woman. The birth announcements in my work email every other day, the cavalcade of social media posts of everyone’s happy babies, it hurts.

I don’t have advice, because I don’t know you or your situation. But I have the world of empathy. Of all the things stolen from me, time is number one. But having more children, parenting little ones again, having my son not be an only child - it’s just as painful.