Being a mother has always been part of the life plan (although so too was being married at 28, so I’ll admit it is a pretty rubbish plan)­. Surely you don’t give someone a passion for cooking, baking (and eating), knitting, sewing and playing and then take away the person (or people) most likely to benefit from it all ­– and love you unconditionally even though you have a tendency to throw icing sugar round the kitchen.

The trouble with life, however, is that things very rarely go to plan. In fact, I would go so far as to say that the more I plan (outside of a work context), the more life likes to throw me off course. For a person who finds comfort in to-do list making, itinerary planning and copious note taking, sometimes I just wish life would see it my way and stick to the schedule! We would both be better off.

If you’d told me last Christmas that I might be infertile by the time I pull my next festive cracker, I probably wouldn’t have believed you. In fact, it was only yesterday, when I was sitting on the train with a cold bag of fertility drugs (free cold bag on the NHS can’t be bad) that I started thinking about the possibility of life without a bump (this time a giant one that I would actively want to feel).

To be honest, on most visits, I feel a bit of a fraud in the assisted conception unit, sitting next to couples who have tried so hard to conceive naturally. For some people, this is their world. For me, it’s something we’re squeezing in between having a boob taken off and chemo. When you’re on the rollercoaster all you can think about is hanging on (and not falling off). It’s only when you’re standing on solid ground again does the reality of what you’ve just experienced set in. Cancer is certainly a pretty unforgiving rollercoaster (certainly wouldn’t pass health and safety) – and I can guarantee you won’t see people queuing up for a piece of the action.

Yesterday, however, I didn’t feel like a fraud. Life has already had one go at my femininity and I would never forgive myself if chemotherapy stopped my ovaries from functioning before I’d had chance to give them a good workout. Sat in the waiting room (a rather plush waiting room with bespoke artworks and a plasma screen playing to itself in the corner) armed with my cold bag, I was just another woman trying her hardest to cling on to the hope of starting a family.

Of course, unlike a lot of women in the waiting room, my body is currently a textbook baby-making machine (so much so that I have to have lots of blood tests as I am in danger of hyper-stimulation). I am happy to report, however, that even with the world’s most pathetic period, I have started my course of Menopur and am one step closer to my next general anaesthetic. It’s Menopur at a certain dosage until a Sunday morning blood test, then I add in Cetrotide (and Ovitrelle gets a look in at some point). Meanwhile, I am also pumping my body with the anti-cancer drug Letrozole in an attempt to keep my oestrogen levels safe. So far, the scrap inside my body is a silent one – and long may that continue.

For those of you considering IVF or thinking about fertility preservation, please don’t worry about the injections. I was delighted to see the teeny weeny needle pop out of the packet and, once the nurse had walked me through the drug mixing and skin squeezing drill, I was all set. As long as you alternate injection sites, follow the pack instructions, tap the syringe to get rid of the air and don’t inject through tights, you’ll be fine (she says, I actually start injecting it myself tonight).

Should I come through chemotherapy with my fertility in tact (apparently a group called the ‘alkylating agents’ are the drugs commonly linked with infertility), the next fertility-related hurdle is Tamoxifen. This hormone treatment (which women tend to take for a minimum of five years) is used in oestrogen receptor positive cancers. You are advised not to get pregnant while taking the drug, even though it can actually make you more fertile. If there’s no sign of the menopause when I complete the course, then there might just be a window of opportunity still ajar that we can squeeze through.

Beyond setting injection reminders (my Menopur injections need to be taken in the evening) and taking my anti-cancer drugs, this is one plan I don’t control. And, you know what, that’s fine by me. I think now is the time to stop writing lists and start making things happen. After all, I need to store up all my planning energy to organise a wedding – something for which a list and a spreadsheet or two would be hugely beneficial. Life surely wouldn’t disagree with that!