(3/4) “The very next week I had a ton of scans and a surgery to put a port in for chemo. It was my first surgery - I had never been through any surgery - and I was pregnant. At 15 weeks they wanted to get the ball rolling, and I started chemo. You can have a surgery once in the second trimester; they put you under and the monitor the baby. Originally, I was going to do the mastectomy while I was pregnant. But the timing of the chemo pushed it too far into my third trimester, and they are worried about me going into labor too early while I would be in surgery. So now, we are doing it once the baby has been born. The plan is, we are doing 6 rounds of chemo, followed by a lumpectomy while pregnant, and then I’ll have my double mastectomy around two weeks so after the baby is born. I opted to do the double, just to reduce the chance of it coming back. I would rather be alive for my kids than have breasts. I haven’t decided how to handle feeding my daughter when she is first born. I don’t want to confuse her by starting her breastfeeding, and then be going into surgery and switching to bottle. I would love to breastfeed, but I may end up pumping colostrum for her and starting her with the bottle. I may end up spending some time in the ICU after the surgery, and if I do, I wouldn’t be there to help her transition from breast to bottle, I would just be leaving my husband to teach her how to bottle feed."

If you would like to help the mama in this story by providing donated milk, please contact us at themilkstories@gmail.com and reference [milk story #009] in your email, we will forward responses to her. #takesavillage

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