Brenna and Jesse, the intended parents

Our story is unique, you see, things are going nowhere near the way I dreamed it to be when I was a little girl. I married the love of my life, Jesse, in 2009 and we were so excited to start our perfect little family. Unfortunately 3 years later our family still consists of just the two of us (and of course our fur baby Lucy). During our 3 years of trying I had gotten pregnant twice and both times we were so excited! Unfortunately neither pregnancy survived. Being devastated but still determined we pressed on to create the family of our dreams. I was destined to be a mother someday, kids are my passion. After 4 unsuccessful tries of basic fertility medication our doctor decided to do a hysteroscopy to see if he saw anything abnormal (we had done lots of other tests in the past with everything coming back normal). After looking the doctor felt things didn't look as healthy as they should and took a sampling of tissue but it would be days before the results came back. I got a call from the doctor himself, which I thought couldn't be good because you only ever hear from nurses, letting me know that the sampling came back showing cancer cells. He assured me that it looked like it's in the early stages and he would refer me to an oncologist that would help with fertility sparring treatments. A week or so went by and more testing had been done when I got the most life changing phone call of all. My doctor began to tell me this was the first call like this he had ever made. He started apologizing and explaining to me that my results came back showing an aggressive cancer that had taken over my uterus and they didn't know what else. I would have to have my uterus and my ovaries out and it needed to be soon. He tried to reassure me he knew of a great doctor that we could work with to start egg preservation. We met with a fertility clinic in Seattle with the hopes of freezing my eggs but first we needed permission from my oncologist to postpone my surgery by 3 or 4 weeks to get the eggs. My oncologist felt unsure about postponing the surgery, so before she made any decisions we did another hysteroscopy. She called us a few days later to tell us she felt like I would be putting my life in danger. She began to tell us that she had a uncomfortable feeling about my situation and said I was way too young (at 28) to have these cancer cells in my uterus. We needed to schedule my surgery ASAP. June 6th, 2012 6 hours after surgery, I woke up to my family telling me I was lucky. The cancer had spread to both my ovaries, over taken my cervix and 90% through the uterine wall. I was going to have to have chemotherapy and radiation! I am currently undergoing chemo treatments which haven't been easy but I am strong and thankful to be alive (and I only have 2 more to go!).

The other side of this story is my sister, a wonderful mother of three beautiful children, (8, 3, and 21 months) whom I nanny. Growing up my sister and I were always close. She is 3 years older and I always looked up to her. She is my best friend! She has always said if I ever have trouble conceiving she would be my surrogate. We never thought that would ever happen! Now here we are, a few weeks away (October 18th) from our tentative implantation where we will transfer 2 blastocysts that were created from an egg donor and Jesse's sperm. We are extremely blessed to have such a wonderful person in our lives, Jennifer, my sister and soon to be surrogate.