Greer FEBRUARY 16, 2015

IT’S WEIRD HOW SOMETHING YOU’VE never considered can suddenly become all you can think about. Like the minute they came in and told me that I had ovarian cancer, all I thought about was my babies. The babies I didn’t have. The babies that, after three years of marriage, Parker and I had just started talking about. In some ways, I still feel too young to be a mother. None of my friends have kids yet. But the biological reality at thirty-one is that, whether our New York to Palm Beach lifestyles and our workaholism allow for it or not, eventually our biological clocks are going to start ticking loudly.

So, as Parker was asking the doctor how early she thought it was and about treatment options and heredity, all I asked was, “Can you save my eggs?”

Parker was near hysterics. “Your eggs? Are you serious right now, Greer? Who gives a shit about your eggs? All I care about is you.”

I just looked back at the doctor, who said, “I don’t see any obvious signs of cancer on your right ovary. I would suggest removing it to be safe, but we can retrieve your eggs from it.”

I told her I’d like to freeze embryos because I hear they have a better success rate than that of eggs frozen unfertilized.

Parker looked truly astounded. But I didn’t know how he didn’t know that. Articles about it were everywhere.

He kind of freaked out and said something like, “How about we discuss the major surgery you’re having tomorrow? Would that be okay with you?”

Parker is usually very calm. But that man loves me. He loves me hard. And I know his panic was from considering a world without me in it. To be honest, I can’t even consider a world without me in it, so I am, instead, considering what I will do after I am declared cancer-free.

What I will do is IVF.

I know what I am up against. I watched my mother go up against it, too. I watched her lose a swift but painful battle with what proved to be the only adversary that had ever beaten Karen McCann. I don’t want to think about it. I don’t want to focus on calling my dad or my sister or on my surgery or my chemo or what they might find inside me.

So instead, I will focus on making my poor, shell-shocked husband deposit his sperm on the way to my surgery. Because I will beat this. I will win. And when I do, we will be so happy to have these beautiful embryos waiting to become babies, ready for us to hold them in our arms.