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No young person planning to start a family imagines they will be one of the one in seven that will struggle with infertility. Similarly, no one imagines they or their partner will receive a cancer diagnosis.
My family is part of an unlucky, although not rare, group that has had to manage both.
At a time when in vitro fertilization (IVF) and infertility treatments are making national headlines in the wake of the Alabama Supreme Court decision that ruled frozen embryos are considered human beings under state law, people all over the country are concerned about access to IVF and the ripple effect this will have across other states.
Ten years ago, my then-boyfriend Ryan was diagnosed with acute lymphoblastic leukemia — a cancer of the blood and bone marrow. He was 26. We had only been dating a year. We learned that the full-body radiation he needed would likely leave him infertile. Ryan decided to save his sperm.
While his cancer treatment was covered under insurance, fertility preservation was not — despite the American Medical Association and the World Health Organization defining infertility as a disease.
Thankfully, the cancer treatment was successful, and Ryan was in remission after a year. He did, however, have many post-treatment side effects like tooth deterioration, cataracts and osteonecrosis that all required care and expenses. He was also paying $300 a year to store his sperm.
