I’m honored to welcome Jenny Lowe, author of ‘Saved by Hope,’ for an interview on The Egg Whisperer Show. Jenny shares her incredible journey of battling stage three ovarian cancer, undergoing IVF, and ultimately using donor eggs and a surrogate to realize her dream of becoming a mother.
Throughout the episode, Jenny discusses the importance of hope, the challenges faced, and the emotional resilience needed to navigate fertility treatments. She offers profound insights into the impact of community support and the significance of storytelling in processing trauma. This episode is a must-listen for anyone facing fertility issues, cancer, or considering alternative paths to parenthood.
Dr. Aimee: I have Jenny Lowe on today. Jenny is the author of Saved By Hope, and we’re going to talk about her story. This is a story of hope, about becoming a mother one way or another. Before we get started, I just want to share a little bit about Jenny for all of you.
Jenny Lowe and her husband James currently live in Salt Lake City, Utah. She has gone through IUI, IVF, and ovarian cancer. Later, she and her husband used donor eggs to create embryos carried by a surrogate to realize their dream of growing their family. Saved By Hope is her first published work.
I’m just so honored and delighted that you are joining us today to talk about your book and your story. Thank you, Jenny, for coming on.
Jenny Lowe: Thank you. I’m honored as well. I’m very humbled by your support. I’m just so happy to be here to share my story.
Dr. Aimee: Tell me about what it meant to capture the story in writing for you and your family.
Jenny Lowe: When we were going through the things that we were, I decided to journal and document the experiences because I wanted to be able to look back and remember. It really started as a passion of wanting to tell the story to my child.
As I was writing, I thought I wanted this to actually be a story that might be able to help other people because I didn’t find a lot of resources that were particular to the experience I was going through. I just felt if there was a story to be told, I could be the person to tell it. So, I just decided to turn it into a book.
Dr. Aimee: I feel like if anyone out there is listening to this and you have a friend or family member that has been diagnosed with a fertility threatening cancer, get this book for them. I think it could be so helpful.
Saved By Hope is an amazing title. What made you title your book Saved By Hope?
Jenny Lowe: There were a lot of recurring themes throughout my IUIs, my IVF, and my cancer treatment, and then moving forward into the more unknown of what was going to happen in our family. It was focused on just keeping hope. It’s not a tangible thing, but it’s something you can really just grasp and hold onto so that you don’t go into those really dark places that fertility treatment and cancer treatment can take you very quickly and you can stay there for a long time if you let yourself.
I was saved by just the idea of hope, but also you have to read a little bit more to see what else is in there, but the fertility journey literally saved my life. Keeping the hope through all of that was just really important.
Dr. Aimee: What do you mean by your fertility journey saved your life?
Jenny Lowe: If my husband and I had not been going through IVF, I probably would have gone undiagnosed for Stage III ovarian cancer. It was through the cycle of IVF and just the very frequent follow ups and vaginal ultrasounds, which are not regular for yearly pap exam. It’s very frustrating that these kinds of diagnoses can go undetected so easily. It was actually because of my IVF cycle that they found out that I had Stage III ovarian cancer.
Dr. Aimee: Wow. I don’t want people listening to think that IVF causes ovarian cancer. Did you have any risk factors for this/
Jenny Lowe: I learned when I was 19 years old, because my mom had both breast and ovarian cancer when I was younger. She is still alive and in remission, it’s been 20 years, thank goodness. But I found out when I was 19 that I was BRCA1 positive, the BRCA1 mutation, so I’ve known since then that I was at higher risk for breast and ovarian. Breast is a higher risk, it’s in the 70%s, and then ovarian is lower, in the 40%s. Just higher risk.
So, I was very proactive about getting mammograms and having breast exams and checks. I had a couple of biopsies and nothing came of it. But I never really put a lot of emphasis on the ovarian cancer part because I just assumed that my yearly checkups were going to capture that and they would reveal if I had something underlying. Unfortunately, that just was not the case in my situation.
Dr. Aimee: What do you wish people facing ovarian cancer knew if they’re just getting that diagnosis?
Jenny Lowe: You’re not alone. It is okay to feel despair and fear. You definitely feel scared that you’re not going to make it through this awful disease.
I was very afraid of that, but I was very open with other people about how I was feeling. It was just really important for me to lean on others for help. I don’t like having to rely on other people for help because I’m a very independent person, I like to do things myself. If I knew somebody that was going through this, I would do anything for them. You have to put yourself in someone else’s shoes, that they want to help you in any way possible.
Just knowing that there is hope and there are resources out there for ways that you can mentally, emotionally, physically get through the battle of cancer.
Dr. Aimee: What were some of the best ways that people helped you?
Jenny Lowe: If I was having a bad day or a hard day, just being willing to listen and not necessarily trying to fix the problem or offer a resolution. It was just being there to listen. Sometimes there is just nothing that can be said, and you just have to be a resource.
Also, don’t always talk about my cancer. You could have a really bad day, too. People would often say, “Oh listen to me, I’m going on, but you have cancer.” I have cancer, but getting a speeding ticket or having a deadline at work is still really hard, and that’s your life and your reality, so don’t minimize that. Also, just be real and don’t make it the focus of attention by talking about cancer all of the time.
Dr. Aimee: Listening is very important. My sister reminds me, “I just need to call you and listen.” Then I’ll say something, and she said, “I said listen with your ears, not your mouth. You cannot listen with your mouth.”
Jenny Lowe: My husband and I get that a lot. “I just need you to listen. I don’t need you to give me your advice.” It’s a fine line that we all deal with.
Dr. Aimee: You had one embryo from that round of IVF, which you sweetly named Embrylo. After chemo was over, you were able to thaw that embryo. What was that journey like for you?
Jenny Lowe: Just to add a little context to that, the day I found out about my cancer, which is its own story and I write about all of this in my book and tell the really gritty, honest, raw details about that, but the morning that I found out I had cancer is the same day we found out that we had gotten one embryo out of our cycle. So, it was like I had the best news of my life that the whole process of IVF wasn’t a waste and it wasn’t unsuccessful, we had one embryo out of it and that was great and we were on Cloud 9. Then the same day the devastation of finding out that I had cancer was part of it. That in itself was just a rollercoaster. I don’t feel like I was able to celebrate that idea and that knowledge before everything just came tumbling down.
Thawing Embrylo and being ready to finally try to bring this baby into the world after everything we had gone through, the devastation and the loss that we had experienced, I don’t think there are really words to describe how much hope we had and how excited we were. It just felt surreal. This is really happening and we’re so lucky, and this is going to be the end of our journey, and we’re going to finally have this child that is biologically both of ours. It just felt very surreal after everything else we had already gone through.
Dr. Aimee: What happened with Embrylo?
Jenny Lowe: We transferred Embrylo using a surrogate. It was successful, we found out two weeks later that we were pregnant. We were so elated, so excited. Unfortunately, a few weeks later, she miscarried, and we ended up losing the baby.
Dr. Aimee: I’m so sorry. I can only imagine how hope again saved you in that situation. What did you do to get your strength back and to become determined again to continue on?
Jenny Lowe: With everything else, I had just beaten cancer, and I told myself I’m not going to let a miscarriage beat me. We took time to grieve and we let ourselves have that moment of saying goodbye to this child. For me, letting go of the reality that I will never be able to have a biological child because of everything I had lost along the way.
We took the time to grieve, but I knew based on what my experience was through cancer treatment, that if you stay in that darkness too long, it can envelop you and take over all of your drive and your passion to move forward. So, we just picked up and decided that we would move forward, whether that was through adoption, or egg donation, or embryo donation. We knew we had some things to decide, but we knew that just because that had happened, we still wanted to be parents. We had started this journey and battled all of the hardships already. This wasn’t going to be the thing that took us down.
Dr. Aimee: I am so inspired by your determination and drive to become a mother. I tell my patients you’re going to be a mother, one way or another. I see that in your story.
What did you guys do next?
Jenny Lowe: We had a lot of hard conversations and really tried to figure out the best route for us. We thought about possible adoption, or embryo donation, or using donated eggs. Adoption, I was just very naïve about the whole process of adoption and it seemed a little more intensive than I felt I was ready to dive into.
At the end of the day, I really wanted James to still be able to have a biological child. Just because I had lost the ability to do so, I was very adamant and felt very passionate that he should still have that ability. That kind of took away the donation of embryos, too. There is a lot of legality around both that kind of changes the journey or the path that we would be going down that was different than what we had just gone down.
For me, I was like we’re going to use a surrogate. I knew all of the ins and outs of that process because we had just gone through it. So, an egg donor seemed to be the best option for us.
Dr. Aimee: How did he feel about that? Was he okay using an egg donor?
Jenny Lowe: James also has a very interesting back story about how he came to be and how he came into this world. He was actually conceived via anonymous sperm donation. I thought in my mind he was going to be like an anonymous egg donor is the best route to go because that’s how he came to be, but it wasn’t that simple for him.
I think he was afraid that one day if he looked down and saw himself looking back from his child that he would see me in the corner being sad that I didn’t have that same reflection back in the physical sense. So, he was worried he would feel guilty that I didn’t get to experience that connection the same way that he did. The hesitation on his part was if I can’t do it, then he shouldn’t be able to have that as well. He flipped the script on me a little bit.
From what I could tell in that moment, I assured him it wouldn’t be something that should be a factor in the decision because I also don’t know years and years down the road what it’s going to feel like to have a child that’s not mine biologically, so in that moment I could very confidently say that’s not an issue, but it is something I fear. I’ve always feared that the connection between a child that isn’t biologically mine would be different or harder to make that connection, but I couldn’t let him not be able to have his own biological child.
Dr. Aimee: How did you guys get through that?
Jenny Lowe: A lot of honest and open conversations. There would be nights we would be laying in bed, and you think the other person is asleep, but you’re like, “Hey, are you awake?” Yeah. And we would just talk about it.
The outcome of James’s history and the journey that he went through as he was growing up and knowing that he had come from a sperm donor, and just his path of maybe one day finding that person has led him to come to the realization that this was actually a very positive path for us to go down.
Dr. Aimee: What are some of the considerations you feel patients and doctors should be aware of if they’re making a similar decision as you guys made?
Jenny Lowe: I think one of the biggest things that I experienced was not being considered the child’s mom. Whether it was as we were creating the embryos using these donated eggs or while we were going through the surrogacy process, it was hard to go through some situations where people would say, “It’s not your child,” or, “You’re not the mom,” or they would call our surrogate the mom. Just the way they would describe my relationship to this child was not always at the forefront of their mind, but it is very much at the forefront of mine.
I just hope that telling our story and talking about it, normalizing this process, normalizing surrogacy, normalizing infertility, everything. I just want people to be more thoughtful and aware of how their words or how their actions can affect somebody who is going through this process. I am not less deserving to be a parent just because I had infertility issues. My infertility issue was that I had cancer. It doesn’t make me less of a candidate to be a good mom. It doesn’t define my motherhood and how much I would love a child that’s mine biologically or not mine biologically.
Dr. Aimee: I always say it’s your baby, it doesn’t matter where the DNA came from.
Jenny Lowe: I feel like I struggled as well and really want to normalize that. I had a hard time knowing or having faith that I would connect with this child. I think that is a very normal thing for people to feel if they are going down a similar path, whether it’s sperm donation, egg donation, embryo, adoption. Any of those ways that you are going to have a child or bring a child into your life and you are not biologically tied, absolutely there are going to be moments that you are afraid that you may not bond with them. There’s just questions.
There were times where I felt like I was a bad person for having those thoughts. Am I going to resent this child because they’re crying in the middle of the night and I’ll be like this isn’t my kid? You just have these crazy thoughts that you don’t want to admit and you don’t want to tell other people because you feel like that just makes you sound like an awful person. So, I really wanted to touch on that a lot in the story.
That is very normal. People shouldn’t feel ashamed that they have those questions or those fears, because that’s just part of it. The way you overcome those and the way that you prove to yourself that those aren’t the way it’s going to turn out, that’s not how it’s going to be, I think that’s what really proves and sets you apart from other people.
Dr. Aimee: I actually bring that up the minute I start talking to patients about creative family building. The first thing I say is, “I know what you’re thinking right now, and you’re afraid to say it. You’re afraid that you’re not going to see this baby as your own, and that’s not happening. It’s just not. But it’s okay to say it out loud and that you’re fearful of it because that’s what extremely thoughtful people do. They want to make sure they’re doing the right things and they think it through.” Of course, my patients, and I’m sure you did, too, talk to a fertility therapist who can also coach you through a lot of these questions and issues.
You eventually found a surrogate through Facebook. Tell us about that.
Jenny Lowe: Unfortunately, the surrogate that we had the first time with Embrylo had decided not to move forward with another attempt, which I totally understand and we were completely fine with that. We could have gone through an agency, and there are lots of different ways you can find surrogates, but we knew we wanted it to be somebody that we had a connection with and not just a complete stranger. At least, we hoped that was the route we could go, because even for the short time that we were experiencing what we were with Embrylo’s surrogate, it was a beautiful experience. We knew that it was such an intimate experience that we hoped it would be somebody in our circle.
James took to Facebook and made a post saying, “If anybody out there in our world knows someone who knows someone,” kind of kicking the can. Literally, within five minutes, we had a response from a woman who he had gone to high school with. I had met her a few times, but our relationship was pretty much just through social media for her and I. She had also gone through some fertility issues of her own. Ultimately, we weren’t sure if she was a viable candidate to be a surrogate. I wasn’t surprised that she offered, just because I know from what I had seen of her online that she was just a very caring individual. She had always been very kind to me and invested in our journey. It was a matter of are we going to be able to do this because of some of the things you experienced, but we had an offer.
We actually had two women that we know offer to be our surrogate through James’s Facebook post.
Dr. Aimee: Wow. I tell people to just put it out there in the universe, and sometimes you’ll just attract someone that was meant to be your surrogate, and sometimes you learn that’s not the way that you should do things.
Jenny Lowe: She had gone through postpartum through having twins. She said, “If you had posted this a few months earlier, there’s no way I would have even offered because of where I was mentally and emotionally,” after what she had experienced. Timing is something. You may put it out there and nothing happens. Then two years later, if you try again, or whatever the case is, you find that they’re willing to do it because it just wasn’t the right time before.
I have also learned through this entire experience that timing is everything.
Dr. Aimee: You guys seem super close from what I’ve seen on Instagram. You guys share a lot of stories together. That’s so incredibly special to see. What was that journey of her carrying your baby like?
Jenny Lowe: It was amazing. Our experience was so beautiful. She was so open and willing from day one to say, “This is your baby, this is your journey. If on a Tuesday night you want to come over and feel my belly for 10 minutes or you want to just sit here and talk.” Whatever the case was, she opened her doors to us, and our home was open to her. It was a little complicated because it was all during COVID, but I have to see the silver lining in the situation.
Dr. Aimee: Absolutely. Now you have your daughter. What is her name?
Jenny Lowe: Her name is Hope.
Dr. Aimee: Awesome. Is there anything about meeting her that surprised you?
Jenny Lowe: I was just happy that she was safe and healthy. I just knew from that moment that my life would never be the same. I will always be worried about her and caring about her. There just is not going to be a day in my life for the rest of my life that I will not think about and love her.
Dr. Aimee: That’s beautiful. Now that you’ve gone through this journey, is there anything, looking back over it, that you want to share?
Jenny Lowe: I think I just had natural fears of becoming a mother, and I think that’s completely normal. I think as you say, you’re going to be a mother, one way or another. I think that’s a very strong statement. I truly believe that it is nurture, it’s how you nurture your child and how you create that bond yourself. It doesn’t have to fit any expectation. It doesn’t have to fit any social norm. It doesn’t have to fit any box. It can be its own thing and it can be beautiful.
I just hope people can realize that if their dreams of becoming a parent don’t work the way or pan out the way that they initially thought, because it seems that’s very common, that it can still happen and it can still be very beautiful.
Dr. Aimee: Is there anything else that you would like to add to our conversation today?
Jenny Lowe: Always have hope. In the dark moments and in moments where you feel like giving up, just know you are not alone and that other people are out there to support you and help you. Just to always carry a little piece of hope with you.
Dr. Aimee: I think it’s hard because I think people are scared to hope, they’re afraid to have hope because they don’t want to be let down. I don’t know how funny this is, but I say hope never killed anybody.
Where can people find your book?
Jenny Lowe: It is available on Amazon, and it will be an ebook.
Dr. Aimee: Excellent. Thank you, Jenny, for being on the show. Thank you to you and James for sharing your journey with us so openly and for writing about it.
For people who want to learn all the twists and turns about everything you experienced, how you were told about your ovarian cancer diagnosis, what happened through the pregnancy with Hope and with your first surrogate, I highly recommend that people buy your book. If you’re a listener and you have someone in your circle that you have heard has been diagnosed with cancer and they are considering growing their family, please get a copy of Saved By Hope for them.
Thank you again, Jenny. I really appreciate your time today. I’m so glad that you came on to talk to us.
Jenny Lowe: Thank you so much for having me.
00:00 Introduction and Guest Welcome
00:30 Jenny Lowe’s Background and Book Introduction
01:20 The Journey of Writing ‘Saved by Hope’
03:08 Discovering Cancer Through IVF
04:59 Facing Ovarian Cancer: Advice and Support
07:03 The Emotional Roller Coaster of IVF and Cancer
10:44 Deciding on Surrogacy and Egg Donation
17:23 Finding a Surrogate and the Journey to Parenthood
20:37 Meeting Baby Hope and Reflections on Motherhood
22:01 Final Thoughts and Book Information
