Women’s options after cancer treatment

Fertility options after cancer treatment may be limited. Your ability to become pregnant may depend on the effects of cancer treatment on fertility, your age and whether you have been through premature ovarian insufficiency or early menopause.

Before trying to conceive, you may want to have your fertility checked. See the Assessing fertility after treatment.

If you harvested and stored eggs or embryos, you may choose to use them after treatment is finished. If your ovaries are still functioning after treatment ends, it is possible to freeze eggs or embryos then.

Learn more about:

• Natural conception
• Donor eggs and embryos
• Finding information about the donor
• Using donor eggs
• Using donor embryos

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Natural conception

Some women are able to conceive naturally after finishing cancer treatment. This will only be possible if your body is producing eggs and you have a uterus. Your medical team will do tests to assess your fertility and will encourage you to try for a baby naturally if they think it may be possible to fall pregnant.

Women who have had chemotherapy or pelvic radiation therapy are at risk of sudden menopause, even after periods resume. If menopause is permanent, it means you will no longer be able to conceive naturally.

If you would like to try to fall pregnant naturally, speak with your cancer specialist first. You may be advised to wait between six months and two years before trying to conceive. The length of time will depend on the type of cancer and the treatment you had.

Donor eggs and embryos

If you have premature ovarian insufficiency after cancer treatment, using donor eggs or embryos may be the only way for you to try for a pregnancy. These options are available to women with a healthy uterus who can be pregnant, although there may be an age limit of about 51.

There are several steps to this process. The first involves taking hormones to prepare the lining of your uterus to receive the donor egg or embryo, and then until the pregnancy is viable. For this reason, women who have a hormone-sensitive cancer may not be able to carry a donor egg or embryo. If you’d like to consider other options, see Other paths to parenthood.

Using donor eggs

Most IVF units in Australia have access to donor eggs. You can also ask a family member or friend to donate eggs. Regardless of where the egg comes from, the donor completes blood tests, answers questions about their genetic and medical information, and goes through a counselling process.

When the egg is removed from the donor’s body, it is fertilised by your partner’s sperm or donor sperm to create an embryo. After a period of quarantine, the embryo is inserted into your uterus. See Women’s options before cancer treatment for more on the general IVF process and for a diagram of how IVF works.

Egg donation is more expensive than standard IVF, as you may be paying costs related to the donor hormone stimulation process.

Using donor embryos

If you use a donated embryo, you can become pregnant without having a genetic relationship to the baby.

Your body will be prepared for pregnancy using hormones, then a thawed embryo will be transferred into your uterus through the IVF process.

Embryo donations usually come from couples who have gone through fertility treatments and have spare frozen embryos that they don’t wish to use themselves. Embryos may be donated for ethical reasons (instead of destroying the embryos) or compassionate reasons (to help someone with infertility).