I’ve done the unthinkable. I’ve done the very thing I never, ever thought I was even capable of doing, the thing I watched men do over the years and thought to myself, “No woman I know would be capable of doing that. Certainly not me.”

But I did it anyway.

I placed my two, adorable, unconditionally loving dogs into foster care.

And even as I type this I weep for them and my seemingly impossible decision. I weep for the hole in my heart where they used to reside.

It’s taken me a month to even write these words. Any animal lover will understand my heartbreak. And only animal lovers will question how I could possibly do something like this.

How could I give away my 10 pound Shih Tzu, Zaney, with her silliness and snuggles a constant in my life since she was just six months old? How could I give away my 12-pound Lhasa Apso, Zan, who placed his head on my forearm while I received at-home hydration after a terrible round of chemo?

How could I rescue these two precious animals five years ago only to put them back into the system from where they came?

I can’t look at their pictures yet. I can’t think about waking up with Zaney’s little face lying next to mine on my pillow. I can’t think about how Zan would love siting on the back of our new couch, looking out the window of our new house as the birds fly around and cats hunt in the fields.

I can’t think about how Zan would hug me like a baby with his two arms and hind legs wrapped around my neck and waste. Or how Zaney would want me to carry her on my left shoulder like an infant … if she missed me, she’d want me to hold her like that for an hour.

I miss them like you miss your boyfriend after he dumps you, when you are in that space of disbelief, “But I know he still loves me. We’ll get back together. He just needs time.”

Only time will never bring my babies back to me: My fiancé is severely allergic to them.

Yes, they are hypoallergenic dogs, but I learned that doesn’t mean much to an allergy sufferer like my R. He started wheezing within 20 minutes of meeting them. For the first six weeks we lived together, he was taking three Claritin-D tablets each day. And he was puffing on his inhaler incessantly. He was miserable.

We did all the right things. We kept the dogs downstairs, closed the vents to our bedroom, placed a HEPA air filter in the room they hung out in most, bathed them each week and kept them off the couch.

After reaching out to an allergist and researching online, we learned that even with shots it would take between two and five years for R to feel relief. Given all my health issues in the past, I couldn’t put him through this amount of suffering.

But I wasn’t ready to let go of them either. They became my emotional support animals through cancer. They flew across the country with me on my lap; they drove from California to Colorado with me, then Colorado to Virginia and back again. They spent Christmases with their canine cousins back east opening more presents than me.

Like most non-animal lovers, R didn’t understand my attachment to them. He thought it was unhealthy and bizarre. He didn’t understand that non-animal people gravitate towards other non-animal people. He is the only person I know who wouldn’t treat his pets like family members. And I’m the only person he knows who would.

But, his whole life, he’s never been able to grow that close to an animal because they all make him horribly sick. He’s never gotten to know what it’s like to have a six-month old puppy fall asleep on your chest or what it’s like to have a shadow follow you to the bathroom while you are sick on the chemo because your 12-pound dog feels its his responsibility to watch over you.

He doesn’t know what it’s like to have this little furry being more in tune to you than any human could ever be. He doesn’t know the meaning of true unconditional love because he’s really never been able to get close to it without it making him sick. And humans aren’t really capable of that kind of love, are we?

I grieved for two months while they were still with me. Every time I thought about a future without them, I’d weep. And like any good man, R’s heart broke every time I cried about them. “Maybe there is another way. Maybe I’m not the man for you. Maybe you need them more than you need me.”

He couldn’t fix this, and that fact caused him pain.

I couldn’t understand why God would give me the three loves of my life, just so I could give two of them away. Was I really going to give up unconditional love for conditional love?

Their dog groomer actually said to me, “God, I hope he’s worth it, Alice.”

In a moment of weakness, I thought, “Shit! Me too.”

Giving my babies away was the most difficult thing I’ve ever done. It’s harder than any cancer treatment I’ve had, harder than even the death of loved ones. I have to believe that God sent these angels to me for when I needed them most. And now they need to be angels for someone else who will love on them as I have. I’m the only mother Zaney has ever known, and it kills me to think of her getting attached to a new mom, even though it’s what she needs and deserves.

They belong with a family they can sleep in the bed with at night; a family who will let them up on the couch and will hold them, spoil them, play with them, love on them, the way I used to.

They can’t have that life with me now, and I had to let them go so they could live they life they deserve. I don’t know how long it will take to not cry every time I think of them. I don’t know if I will ever forgive myself for abandoning them.

Maybe the lesson for me is to not look back, but only look forward – to not focus on what I miss, but focus on what I have – a loving spouse who isn’t sick all the time, who is building his life with me and has had his own sacrifices to make to include me in his life. My favorite time of day used to be snuggling with both dogs on the couch. Now, my favorite time of day is snuggling with R on the couch.

Thankfully, he isn’t allergic to babies.

Alice Crisci is founder of Fertile Action, a non-profit that helps women become mothers after cancer. You can follow her tales of surviving cancer and taking action on Twitter @alicecrisci.

Go ’head and click and Follow Us for more updates straight to your news & nonsense feeds.

THE BEST STUFF OF THE DAY:

• Steve Jobs’ Willy Wonka Moment: Apple CEO Planned iMac Golden Ticket
• This British Ad for Marriage Equality Is Perfect
• VOTE OR DIE: German Students Will Slaughter This Lamb Unless You Say ‘Nein’
• Dad and Kids Drive to School and Sing ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’

The post Doing the Unthinkable: Would You Give Up Your Dogs for Your Future Husband? appeared first on HyperVocal.

Before cancer, I felt like I was a model for manifesting a brilliant destiny – complete with the bi-coastal, high-powered executive lifestyle, a great live-in boyfriend, my first business book I was writing and talks for a television deal.

My response to cancer changed all that overnight. I no longer had the energy or mental acuity to be the consultant I once was. My heart’s purpose changed from wanting to help others become financially abundant to wanting to help others become moms after cancer. Ironically, I’ve been broke ever since. Am I living the wrong purpose?

Last year, I suffered two miscarriages. But I also had to declare Chapter 7 bankruptcy because I don’t earn a salary from the non-profit I started and couldn’t pay off the mounting cancer medical bills.

Some called me irresponsible for not getting a real job and bagging the non-profit. Some called me irresponsible for getting pregnant without a steady paycheck. Some called me irresponsible for how fast I fell in love and how fast I moved in with my almost fiancée, who I am afraid will be my ex-almost fiancée.

I suffered a massive setback with my PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder) and had to start the medications and therapy all over again as if I never treated it before, which will delay the childbearing plan even longer.

I get that I am no different than any other human, in that I do struggle, but an ex-boyfriend who I am still friends with (yes, that’s possible!) reminded me today of one very important fact that undoubtedly has changed the course of my life for 2012: I can either struggle like a champ or struggle like a little bitch.

So I’m gonna struggle like a champ.

Our conversation reminded me of the movie “Warrior.” Just like the lead character who is running from something he is ashamed of (deserting his Marine Corp unit) while others hail him as a hero for saving lives before he deserted, I too am feeling shame while the patients I help and others in the oncofertility community think I am a hero for the work I am doing for Fertile Action.

I feel ashamed for not having raised enough funds for Fertile Action to sustain itself, pay me even a small salary or pay my right-hand woman a salary. I feel ashamed for feeling like I am failing at my relationship to a man I deeply love and want to build a life with. I feel ashamed for letting his boys down, to whom I love being a stepmother. I feel ashamed for not being farther along the path to wellness, mentally or emotionally. I’m ashamed for not writing thank you notes to each person who ever made a donation to Fertile Action.

Logically, I know this shame is counterproductive and useless. But, come on, I was raised Catholic – shame is as familiar to me as a Hail Mary and the Sign of the Cross.

And just like that pivotal moment where the Warrior fights his brother with his shoulder popped out of its socket and you know he is not going to surrender, the relationship between the brothers is healed. His heart is healed. He can let go of his shame and regret and anger…all that release happening because he would not surrender to defeat. He would fight with one arm up and take hit after hit after hit until the fight was declared over.

I, too, will not surrender, and my proverbial shoulder is most certainly popped out of its socket. I started 2012 feeling unbalanced, unhealthy and unaligned with God’s purpose for my life. I was lost, confused, broken, sad, scared and anxious.

But I’m gonna struggle like a champ.

I will not shut the doors of Fertile Action just because we are currently unsustainable financially. I am the Warrior right now with my shoulder hanging by the threads of its ligaments because I can’t pay my own bills without an income! The Warrior in the film can’t win without two functioning shoulders either. My full time job doesn’t pay me. But my full-time job is fulfilling my heart and making a difference in the world! The Warrior’s fight is worth fighting one shoulder and all…surely my work helping women afford fertility preservation and preserve their right to become mothers after cancer is worth fighting for too.

I am helping 15 cancer patients right now get fertility preservation at rates they can afford. I am in that Warrior cage fighting the health-care system, fighting doctors who love huge profits, fighting hospitals with too many rules to be flexible enough to help these women pro bono.

I am in that cage of self-doubt and performance anxiety knowing I can win a book deal with an actual publisher and fighting the urge to tap the floor or the guys arm crying “uncle” because I am scared it won’t happen and scared it will.

I am in the front row of the audience watching my friends Kellie and Sylvie in their own cage, fighting their breast cancer having metastasized to their brains! I am holding my breath while I beg God to cure them.

People tell me to shut Fertile Action’s doors, that I am suffering because I can’t raise enough money to pay myself for running it. Those people don’t know the fighter I am. They don’t know I will struggle like a champ until someone knocks me unconscious. I will fight with my shoulder popped out of its socket until someone calls the fight.

I will not stop writing my truth no matter how painful it is for me to bare my soul to the world because if it helps one person than my pain was worth living through.

I am a warrior. I am going to struggle like the champ I am.

The question is, are you?

If you want to contribute to my campaign to win the Fertile Action fight, please make a donation to Fertile Action here. I don’t care if its $1 or $10,000. Something, anything will make a difference and help me pop my shoulder back in its socket.

Alice Crisci is founder of Fertile Action, a non-profit that helps women become mothers after cancer. You can follow her tales of surviving cancer and taking action on Twitter @alicecrisci.

The post Struggle Like a Champ or Struggle Like a Little Bitch appeared first on HyperVocal.

The first sign was my aversion to coffee, a flavor I’ve loved for 20 years, and bacon, a flavor I rediscovered during chemo. My belly bloated with such a full feeling I could only eat a few bites of food for meals and I started belching –- something I abhor and rarely ever experience.

I walked into the grocery store and smelled everything all at once. The nausea was insane – I even dry heaved twice, a rarity considering I’ve only actually vomited a handful of times in my whole life. I was peeing every hour and started napping each afternoon.

One morning, I woke up at 3:30 to a pulling sensation in my lower abdomen. According to the two dozen websites I was perusing, it was early pregnancy. I learned my uterus was expanding. My face also started breaking out in what looked like a small, pimply rash, and my belly started itching. Either all these symptoms were a fluke to occur all at once, or I was pregnant.

Sure enough the day I was supposed to get my monthly flow, I got a plus sign on a home test. I was pregnant…against all odds.

When I was diagnosed with breast cancer at 31 years old, I learned chemotherapy might leave me infertile. I didn’t know how many eggs I’d have left after treatment or if any remaining eggs would be chromosomally viable.

Ever since I was a little girl, I’ve known I wanted to be a mother. That’s why I put the $20,000 cost of fertility preservation on my American Express Card.

For two weeks, I injected hormones into my abdomen to stimulate my ovaries into producing more follicles (which house the eggs) than they normally would per month. Within a week, my abdomen was so swollen I imagined I looked about four months pregnant. The extra hormones made me happy. For a brief time during a scary cancer crisis, I focused on the life I would someday bring into the world by implanting embryos back into my uterus or the uterus of a surrogate.

Exactly, three years to the day of my diagnosis, my sister and I drove away from the first home I owned in Redondo Beach, CA to a rental property in Boulder, CO, where I was to start my new life since surviving cancer. In those three years, I lost so much – sure, the obvious losses when you have breast cancer, like my boobs, nipples, ability to breastfeed and my hair. But I also lost my company, my boyfriend, my house, my independence, and for a while I even lost my sanity.

But none of the losses I experienced from having cancer could prepare me for the loss I experienced while four weeks and one day pregnant. I looked at that plus sign on the stick no less than two dozen times. Was it real? I knew what I felt, but until I saw a doctor and had a blood test confirm my symptoms, it felt unreal.

I had only shared the news with my boyfriend the night before – I kept my symptoms to myself for two weeks because I didn’t want to freak him out unnecessarily if it ended up being nothing. He freaked out about the very thing I knew he would: “How are we going to afford a kid?” After a two-and-a-half-hour conversation, we agreed we wouldn’t tell either side of the family until we had a plan, and we both hoped that plan included finding out we were having a girl, the first girl grandchild for both sides of the family.

I went to bed ecstatic; everything was going to be okay. The child was conceived in love, and the child would be immeasurably loved by both of her parents.

Just 24 hours later, I felt even more change. My stomach was burning and felt more uncomfortable than before, and I started spotting dark brown blood. I freaked out, but I read online that spotting is normal in early pregnancies. I went to bed calm, but cautious.

I woke the next morning incredibly sad. Before I even stepped foot out of bed, I noticed how deeply sad I was feeling. I wanted to pee on another stick just to confirm there was pregnancy hormone in my urine. I screwed up the test, though, because instead of pee, I passed large blood clots and was horrified.

The most respected pregnancy websites mentioned a 50/50 chance I would miscarry. I had a 50/50 chance of being left infertile from chemo, and now I had a 50/50 chance of losing the only pregnancy I might ever experience.

For two hours, I passed clots between the size of a quarter and a silver dollar. I was freaking out and called every doctors office in Boulder to see if someone could fit me in that morning. Office after office told me the same thing: “We aren’t taking new Medicare patients.” When I asked if I could pay cash, I was told the same thing, “We aren’t taking new Medicare patients.” So you are discriminating against me for having the wrong insurance? When that question was met with the same response, “We aren’t taking new Medicare patients,” I texted my boyfriend that I needed to go to the ER.

I waited as long as possible to urinate because each time I did I passed clots bigger than the last. I was holding on to a glimmer of hope that maybe we were pregnant with twins and I was only losing one. That hope evaporated when I passed the largest clot about the size of my palm, along with a small stringy-like tissue. I came out of the hospital bathroom and felt empty. I collapsed into my boyfriend’s arms.

Four hours later, the ER doc confirmed my worst fears: there was no more pregnancy. I sobbed harder than I sobbed when I was diagnosed with cancer. My boyfriend held me as I shook and cried that I wasn’t a woman – I had no breasts and now my reproductive system failed me. I felt as though I fail at being a woman. I felt ugly and empty and incredibly sad.

Within 48 hours, our lives changed twice.

Click Page 2 below for why Alice should feel relieved but doesn’t…

The post Losing My Baby: Within 48 Hours, Our Lives Changed Twice appeared first on HyperVocal.

I know what you are thinking: dump him.

But, acting like a coward from time to time is not on my dealbreaker list.

Addicts of any kind are (alcohol, gambling, sex), so are bullies and narcissists, atheists, men who are greedy and men who wear Tevas anywhere except in the wilderness. I’ve come into contact with many men who have cowardly tendencies and it reminds me of the cover of Time magazine one year whose headline read, “Are We Raising Wimpy Men?”

Maybe we are.

Could I surrender to a man who chooses cowardice from time to time?

I’m sure it sounds as unattractive to you as it does to me. In those moments, I have such compassion for him, such love, but I’m not feeling anything between the legs. I would be such a hypocrite if I broke up with him over the last round of cowardice. After all, I’m letting all kinds of fears stop me. Mine aren’t so obvious because they happen behind the scenes. It’s easy for me to shield everyone from knowing what I am afraid of and what is stopping me because my public life looks pretty darn courageous.

Today, I am peeling back the curtain on three huge fears of mine. I can’t expect my man to practice courage with me if I’m not willing to do the same.

Hiking Alone – For some, a solo hike is the most self-indulgent, delicious way to spend a quiet morning. For me, just the idea of it triggers a hyper-vigilant chemical response in my brain. Like a rapid-fire machine gun, my mind imagines scary men attacking me and wild animals mauling me beyond recognition.  Images that move so fast and furious, I don’t have a chance to stop them. Crazytown brain moments I call them. Irrational. This is the brain of someone who is chronic PTSD.

The first morning of my first solo hike, I packed my California ID, my cellphone, a bottle of water and my rain parka. I just need to make it to my rock, this rock I like to lay down on and stare up at the trees, taking in all the sounds of the earth – birds calling to each other, little animals rustling leaves, wind picking up steam. I practically sprint there and almost vomit when I do arrive I’m so out of breath. I sit for not nearly as long as I would if my friend Sandra were with me. But I do sit and am annoyed by the sound other hiker’s feet are making on the ground – they are disturbing my oneness with the earth and it’s annoying. But, I am not afraid. I did it and I can do it again tomorrow. Maybe, I’ll even go a few feet beyond my rock.

Asking People for Money – I’m sure this sounds absurd. I mean why would I start a non-profit if I were afraid to ask people for money? It’s a bizarre conundrum I’m still trying to make sense of myself. As a consultant, I’ve always exchanged my service for payment. As a sales rep, I peddle goods or services people want in exchange for payment. That makes capitalistic sense to me. But in the case of my non-profit, I’m asking for money for services I am rendering for someone else. In my head, I know everyone gets asked for money every day – there are over 1.2 million non-profits in our country! The competition for too few resources in this economic climate is fierce. And it’s exhausting to keep asking for money over and over again.

I will ask every single person I’ve ever met for a donation to Fertile Action.

Pitching My Books to a Publisher – Fears always seem so irrational to others, don’t they? I mean I’m a published author and I still get completely stopped in pitching my projects to publishers. I’m afraid that success will paralyze my ability to create. If I’m successful, won’t people just expect more and want more? What if I am unable to deliver? Is this the plight of every writer that has ever walked? Yet, if I don’t write, I can’t live. Writing is like breathing – I must do it to survive.

This week, I am pitching my book proposals.

I’ve lived most of my life in terror. Actual terror. I was born with a genetic blueprint for PTSD so every trauma throughout my life large or small, triggered a PTSD response. Since I was a young girl, I simply adjusted to the PTSD response I was having to the point where I didn’t even know I was having them. The adrenaline response of fight or flight became my normal, until I was no longer able to make the adjustment and PTSD became debilitating.

Courage is a practice, like meditation, like yoga. And courage doesn’t exist without fear. I choose to embrace my fears and I will practice courage, one conscious, baby step at a time.

The real question is, will he?

Alice Crisci is founder of Fertile Action, a non-profit that helps women become mothers after cancer. You can follow her tales of surviving cancer and taking action on Twitter @alicecrisci.

PREVIOUSLY FROM ALICE

–Survivor Sex: My First Time After a Double Mastectomy
–Dating Guys or Goldilocks? Misadventures in Love, Sex and Dating on Journey to Being Just Right

The post Should Cowardice Be a Dealbreaker in Dating? appeared first on HyperVocal.

By 16, I changed my mind and set a new goal: I would be married and have my first child by the age of 24. By the time I turned 24 however, I was so busy trying to “retire” by age 30, I worked 80 hours a week helping to build a company, leaving little to no room for dating, though dating I tried. But after hearing a number of men in the commitment-shy Los Angeles, “You’re the kind of girl I should marry, but I’m not ready to head down that path,” I decided I would be an international business tycoon who took lovers, not husbands.

That plan sounded far more glamorous than becoming an old maid by accident, or because I was, in my worst fears, actually “unlovable.” Deep down, I felt that if I declared I didn’t want to get married, it wouldn’t hurt as bad if no one ever picked me. But, I craved companionship like I crave chocolate when my monthly “friend” is about to visit, and that desire led me to compromise.

And compromise led me to the decade of Goldilocks Guys: men trying to find their perfect bed.

Markell was a rugged artist and the first man I learned how powerful pheromones really are, as I noticed his scent while at a party before I noticed his face. He said I wasn’t feminine enough, but then he also knew more about my monthly flow than even a male gyno would.

Gabe, a brilliant, albeit self-centered actor, named me the “Good Republican,” despite all my assurances I was most definitely not Republican, a fact reiterated by my mother’s strategically placed copy of “How to Talk To A Democrat.” In the end, I wasn’t enough like his ex Allison, whom he admitted to using me to get over. Despite trying to convince myself the intellectual artist type made the best lovers, they didn’t.

Chris and I took business meetings together, we brainstormed ideas and solutions, and over a short period of time, he did become my lover. I knew he didn’t want marriage and family. He was a former marine with arms tattooed up and down, and pierced nipples. He lived his life in a bubble of tech entrepreneurship and day trading, isolating himself in front of 3-4 computer screens every day with hardly any social life at all. We were perfect.

He was smokin’ hot, both nerdy and dangerous. We could talk about anything pre- or post-coital. I cared for him, but I knew he would never be my boyfriend, even though I secretly wanted to take him to my charity events, dinner meetings or the movies. But, then Chris took a security job in Iraq. My resolve for choosing a life without a husband was quickly unraveling, and I started to feel desperate, though I would never admit that to anyone.

On the periphery of my consciousness, I believed that if I could just be skinny enough, pretty enough, successful enough, fabulous enough and smart enough, I’d be lovable.

I threw myself into perfectionism, signing up for every self-help workshop I could find and reading every book ever written to become enough.

So, I started a new company. I bought my first house at my target goal of 30 years old and adopted two dogs. Deep down I still wanted a mate, but felt myself resigning to a life of “on my own.”

Then I met Doug. He was almost ten years older than me, a public speaker and, seemingly a self-help junkie, like me. After a tumultuous eight months together, he moved in with his two cats. It was supposed to be a temporary situation since his Christian values told him we shouldn’t live together. But, then I got cancer and his Christian values wouldn’t let him leave me. We ended things after he told me we didn’t have a future together when I politely asked for his sperm to preserve my fertility before chemo started. Apparently, I wasn’t Christian enough for him.

I met Steve and decided he was the one. He helped reawaken my sexuality post cancer treatment, even though I didn’t have nipples yet and felt about as sexy as a rock. But, like Doug, he drank more than I was comfortable with, so when I picked a fight over the phone, he broke up with me, saying I had too many expectations, and that was the end of that.

I met Frank just before he was leaving to work in Patagonia, Chile for six months. We agreed I would write him in a journal every day and mail him the completed books every eight weeks or so. I loved the idea of falling in love with a man over letter writing. I wrote about my friend when she was diagnosed with a stage 4 recurrence of breast cancer. I wrote about the beautiful spider that took up residence on my front porch to lay her eggs. I wrote about my desire to move to Boulder, Colorado. I wrote about how I missed him. I don’t know if he ever even read the book. Apparently, I was too romantic.

I did make that move to Boulder. I let go the idea of him and opened my heart to the idea that my mate was a down-to-earth, rugged man in Colorado without the feminine computer hands of so many men I dated in Los Angeles. I met Matteo when I answered his ad on Craigslist to purchase his humidifier.

On our second date he informed me he was about to have a baby from a one-night stand and wasn’t looking for anything serious.

Really?!

I attended a fabulous conference on a cruise and met Mike the first night. We spent hours talking on the deck of the ship while our peers danced the night away on a deck just below. By our last night, we were discussing expectations upon returning home and I felt like I met my match. He was brilliant and successful, sexy but not pretty. He was athletic and competitive, a man’s man with a Catholic upbringing and a business partner who was his brother.

Three weeks later when he was in Boulder to train for an ultra-marathon, he said he thought I was too successful to be in a supportive role to him and that he no longer wanted to pursue me.

Ouch.

The second Doug I met charmed me for two months after meeting me at a charity event. He called, text messaged, instant messaged, emailed me Pandora stations he made and stories about his life; we made plans for camping trips and even agreed to establish a dating fund with me so we could make a game out of saving money for a future trip to Barcelona together. He met me for dinner on a Sunday night before I took a business trip, told me he would miss me and couldn’t wait to see me again. By Friday, he changed his mind and stopped speaking to me. When he did get in communication two weeks later, he told me I was moving too fast. I hung up on him before teaching him what projection means.

Double ouch.

Mark and I met standing in the Southwest Airlines line in Sacramento.  We bonded over his glass eye and my cancer story. I glanced at his left hand and noticed he wasn’t wearing a wedding band. Within five minutes on our first dinner date, he informed me his WIFE was dating women so he was also allowed to date women.

Seriously?!

I turned 35 while in Stockholm for a conference. I met a fabulous Israeli man I could never have unless I converted and moved to Tel Aviv. I freely admit I feel desperate for love and marriage, but not enough to move to Israel. I went from being not enough in my twenties to too much in my thirties -– too intense, too driven, too successful, too independent.

Are these Guys or Goldilocks? Will I ever hear the words I’ve been longing to hear: “Alice, you are just right…Will you marry me?”

It’s been 20 years since I told Mike I wanted to marry him. It’s my 20-year anniversary of the only proposal I’ve ever had. And I don’t even have a diamond to prove it.

Alice Crisci is founder of Fertile Action, a non-profit that helps women become mothers after cancer. You can follow her tales of surviving cancer and taking action on Twitter @alicecrisci.