SIOUX FALLS, S.D. (KELO) — A breast cancer diagnosis can be scary at any age, but for one young mother undergoing chemotherapy, it also came with the possibility of not being able to have more kids.
Claire Feterl was a new mom in 2017. Just a few months postpartum, she found out she had breast cancer. At the age of 27, the diagnosis along with her new baby sent her life into a whirlwind.
“You’re just thrown into this world of blood draws and labs and tests and scans, and you feel like you’re swimming upstream with no lifejacket,” in remission, Claire Feterl said.
In the early meetings with her doctors, Claire knew she had to tell them about her family’s future hopes.
“My husband and I were like, we want a second kid. You know, she kind of took a deep breath and she was like, ‘okay, we need to do some things to make this happen’,” Feterl said.
“Chemotherapy doesn’t always make people infertile, but it does have that possibility of doing that. And so we want to be proactive and kind of make some safeguards in there to say, okay, if you are not able to achieve pregnancy after, what kind of options do we have that might allow you to still have a child after chemotherapy?” Medical Oncologist, Dr. Keely Hack said.
“So there was about three weeks of the time period between my diagnosis and the surgery, and we did IVF in that period. So it was like, go, go, go. You know, I was doing the egg retrieval, I was doing the meds, doing all the things, and it was a blessing and a curse,” Feterl said.
Dr. Hack was also a new mother at the time, which added another dynamic to her relationship with Feterl.
Information video posted on South Dakota’s abortion law
“Starting a family and having children was really important to me. I can only imagine how important it is to you and I want to do what I can to help you achieve that,” Hack said.
“She wasn’t saying, ‘Here’s what’s going on with your cancer.’ She was saying, ‘Here’s what’s happening to you as a whole. You’re young, mom. These are all the things I’m also experiencing. You’re not alone’,” Feterl said.
After finishing her treatment, Feterl was able to get pregnant without IVF, and gave birth to her son Hudson in 2021.
“You really have to just put your faith and your trust in your care team because they know the research, they know the risks, they know at all,” Feterl said.
Feterl said that along with her family, the team at Sanford acted as a ‘life vest’ during her battle with cancer and her second pregnancy.
