The moment you find out you are pregnant is not something you forget. In my case, I had spent years being terrified of the idea. Ovarian cancer had changed my body when I was still young and I was afraid to imagine the future, in case something went wrong. So, when the white strip released two blue lines in 2022, everything changed in an instant. I was filled with amazement at the thought that molecules were forming a new person inside me.
Having lost one ovary and been through temporary menopause caused by cancer medication, I had assumed it was unlikely I would ever be able to have a child. The future I had dared not imagine had reached a tipping point. Would I be able to grow a baby? Was it safe inside me? How would I deal with giving birth? Although the pregnancy was what I wanted, there were so many risks and so few certainties that I didn’t feel immediately overjoyed.
It was the mid-2010s and I was 31 when I discovered I had a tumour. One autumn morning, I woke with a dullness inside me, like period pain, although it was the wrong time of the month. I pushed my duvet away and tried to stand up, but my legs buckled and I found myself on the floor. I managed to get to the bathroom and hoped emptying my bowels was all it would take. Then I would be fine, I thought. Afterwards, I checked the toilet bowl and the water was thick with blood.
At A&E, a doctor asked if I could be pregnant. A test soon ruled it out. Part of me was relieved, because I wasn’t ready for a child. I was in a long-distance relationship and wanted to focus on my career. An ultrasound revealed a large mass extending from my left ovary all the way to above my belly button. After a complex operation, the biopsy was conclusive: I had a very rare form of ovarian cancer and would need chemotherapy.
The prospect of a future child is not the first thing you expect to think about in a situation in which holding on to your own life is a priority. But chemotherapy was gruelling and, although I was likely to survive the cancer, it was possible that my fertility might not recover. I was told that freezing some eggs for later wouldn’t be safe as the cancer cells were everywhere.
The menopause brought on by the chemo came with hot flushes, sleepless, sweat-filled nights and convulsions. After a succession of toxic chemicals had been pumped through me, I was fortunate to be told I was free of cancer. But what do you do when your world has been swallowed by illness? I decided to move abroad for a while. I threw myself into work as a design critic and curator, which gave me a sense of purpose and distracted me from my constant anxiety about my health.
Eventually, my partner and I decided to try for a baby, knowing that it would soon be too late. It wasn’t likely to happen, not least because my egg count was very low. I couldn’t believe it when, just a few months later, the test was positive. A small part of me couldn’t help but imagine a tumour lurking there surreptitiously, but the scan revealed the heartbeat of an 11-week-old foetus.
Being pregnant was the opposite of having a tumour, but the experiences were oddly similar. Both involved growing something inside me. Because of my history, I had to have regular scans. I attended the first few with trepidation, in case something was off, but each time it felt as if alchemy was taking place in my womb. The abstract blob of the first scan grew a face, a body, limbs (legs crossed, to be precise) and a spine – all of them more pronounced as the months passed. I had become accustomed to seeing my body as a death machine; here it was, designing a new life.
People’s faces generally froze when my cancer came up in conversation, so the excitement I attracted as a pregnant woman was novel. People jumped up to offer me their seats on the tube when they saw my bump, something that didn’t happen when I was ill and needed to sit down. No one tells you that having three rounds of chemo helps you deal with the nausea, constipation, tiredness and changes in taste that come with pregnancy.
My pregnancy ended in an emergency caesarean, eerily reminiscent of my previous operation. This time, though, a new person emerged from my abdomen, instead of a life-threatening lump. Her tiny wriggles and passionate cries filled the operating theatre with warmth. When I held her and she nestled into me, I felt a flood of emotion. I expected to connect with my baby, but didn’t anticipate the strength and empowerment that could come from giving birth. I experienced how spectacular the human body is – that it can hold on to trauma, but also overcome a negative experience and create new synapses that make you feel renewed.
Miraculously, given the demands of being a new parent, I have more energy these days. I don’t think about what could go wrong all the time and can enjoy the moment, extraordinary or banal. For years, I tried running away from my body, but it kept catching up with me. I wanted to find a new beginning, but I didn’t expect to find it so close to home. Our baby girl challenged my fear that the passing of time inevitably makes us frail. Instead, over the course of a decade, I discovered I could lose myself, then be rebuilt even stronger.
