The ability to produce

When it was time to neuter Jeanie, I hesitated because I felt I was tampering with my doggie friend's body without her permission, so much so that when she came back from the back a little lethargic from the anesthetic used, I looked into her eyes and saw the sadness in them. No anger nor resentment towards me, but I remember the look of those eyes til this day as I mentally asked myself on her behalf "why did you take away my gift to reproduce?" And til this day I still have no answer aside from the standard answers about dogs in heat yadda yadda.

The point of that personal anecdote? Today (Dec 2016), we began another type of treatment for ww, where instead of relying on the tamoxifen, we were gonna use a new drug that would not only suppress the estrogen production but also eliminate those hiding in her fats (~10%), and this involved inducing menopause in her via an injection called zolodex. With the rather painful transdermal injection today, our chances of having a second child quietly went away, and like the sun setting, I always knew this day was coming although the certainty of it now really hits home. Of course we could always stop the injections but being pregnant also means hormonal surges which are what her cancer cells feed upon. I would not want to risk losing ww again, and resign myself to my only beautiful girl with a heart of gold. 

What to do when you're not expecting

Thanks to ww's illness, she cannot get pregnant in the 5 years after her treatment, mainly because her tumour is progesterone positive, i.e. it feeds on progesterone, and being pregnant would result in elevated levels of hormones including progesterone.

At the start, we both accepted the news stoically, as we made the decisions on the course of her treatment as best as we could, and this included taking out one of her Fallopian tubes and freezing it, with the hope that in time, we can have it put back and restored to working order (sounds mechanical, i know, that's the best way i could put it). Good news is whatever age we were then, her frozen tube would be at the age she froze it.

Despite these efforts, part of us, or at least part of me, was resigned to having just the one light of our lives. Both of us really wanted more than one child, and while i could comfort ww whenever she teared up at the thought of missing out on more children, i did feel a deep void of disappointment inside whenever the subject was mentioned. This was often, since when asking about one's wellbeing and family, and inevitable question arose "so when is number 2?". Having to put up a smile and say one is enough has been well practiced, but the inner turmoil that i was forced to put aside after is a painful burden. Other strange thoughts from ww included the random "will you leave me to look for another, one that could bear you more children?" which although preposterous is understandable from her perspective and i tried to allay her misplaced fears (i have not heard it since so i guess i managed to =) ). Hard to explain to her that I love her with all of me and would have it no other way.

Update (Dec 2016): the doctor informed us that being pregnant will always be dangerous for WW, as the surge of hormones would threaten a recurrence. That's that then.