I'm one of those people who firmly believe pregnancy sucks. I've been
lucky, both times, to experience mild nausea, major insomnia and
swollen ankles and that's about it. And yet, oh did I complain.
Had I read this article in the New York Times
on cancer during pregnancy, I hope would have been shamed into shutting
right up. Because as uncomfortable and sometimes outright miserable as
pregnancy is, the prospect of facing your own mortality, the
possibility of harming your baby, and the hell that is cancer treatment
all at once is something no one should have to go through.
But
they do – as women conceive children later in life they are also
running into disease that tend to strike people later, such as cancer,
during their pregnancies. Also, the normal life cycle of a woman's
childbearing years has changed. It used to be that girls started their
periods around 13 to 15 years of age and then went into menopause in
their late 30s – now, puberty can begin as early as 9 years old and
menopause typically occurs around age 50.
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