TLC reality TV star Shauna Rae, 24, is weighing her options if she wants to become a mom. From freezing her eggs and exploring in vitro fertilization (IVF) to surrogacy and adoption, she lays out her risks, given her dwarfism diagnosis.
“Can I get pregnant normally, in that sense? No,” Rae says in a TikTok video explaining her fertility options.
“The least amount of risk would be surrogacy if I chose to have a child,” Rae said. Rae was the star of her TLC reality TV show “I Am Shauna Rae.” It chronicled her day-to-day life as a 3-foot, 10-inch adult. As a young child, she was diagnosed with a rare form of brain cancer, and although she entered remission, a side effect of her diagnosis caused her to stop growing.
Her condition is known as pituitary dwarfism, caused by insufficient human growth hormones in the body as a result of the treatment she received for brain cancer as a child.
Rae’s social media video outlines her options if she wants children.
Rae says if she undergoes in vitro fertilization (IVF), she should be able to carry the baby to term, according to her doctors. However, she would have to undergo a c-section to give birth to the baby due to her small frame.
“As long as I gain the weight of the baby and not too much excessive weight after that, I’d have to really watch my diet and stuff so I don’t gain too much weight for my bones,” Rae explained.
“If I decide to use my eggs if I get them frozen—as time is dwindling—it’s still an expensive procedure that I simply do not have the funds for right now,” she continued.
However, Rae leaned more toward her safest option – surrogacy.
“I’d probably go with surrogacy because I would not put the baby naturally in my body because I don’t want to put the child or myself at risk,” Rae said.
She concluded by suggesting adoption is also on the table.
Helping Patients With Fertility Resources
- After A Cancer Diagnosis: Getting Fertility Hormone Injections
- Fertility Preservation After a Cancer Diagnosis
- How Does Chemotherapy Affect Fertility?
- Treating Ovarian Cancer, Preserving Fertility
Understanding Shauna’s Diagnosis
When Rae was six months old, she was diagnosed with a cancerous brain tumor. Rae’s cancer journey lasted for more than three years, which included brain cancer surgery to remove as much of the tumor as possible. However, oftentimes, surgeons cannot get all of the cancer cells during surgery, so follow-up chemotherapy is usually recommended to get the remaining cancer cells. Her procedure helped her reach remission. Although she’s been in remission for years, there’s always a chance of her brain cancer returning.
During a 2022 episode of “I Am Shauna Rae,” she explained to her doctor that she frequently experienced migraines, which could be a symptom of a brain tumor. Her mom said at the time, doctors told her the cancer could always come back.
@shaunarae99 Let’s talk about it. #dwarfism #drawfismawarness #pituitarydwarfismawareness #disabilitytiktok #migraine #headache #headpain #migraines #brain #cancer #braincancer #sideaffects #red40 #allergy #letsfaceit #braincancerawareness #survivor #meds #pain #brainpain #shauna #shaunarae #shaunaraeadventure #shaunaraeadventures #i #iam #iamshauna #iamshaunarae #shaunaraemigraine ♬ original sound – Shauna Rae
After undergoing brain cancer treatment, Rae’s mom noticed her daughter wasn’t growing, leading to her pituitary dwarfism diagnosis.
Research published in the New England Journal of Medicine says pituitary dwarfism derives from a “deficiency of growth hormone or lack of peripheral action of growth hormone.”
Research published in the medical journal Pituitary, which focuses on clinical aspects of the pituitary gland, says, “Poor longitudinal growth and growth hormone deficiency (GHD) is often a consequence of cancer treatment during childhood.”
Understanding Brain Tumors
Brain tumors impact a person’s brain function and overall health, depending on their size, type, and location within the brain. Tumors that grow big enough and disrupt normal central nervous system functioning can press on nearby nerves, blood vessels, or other tissues. The disrupted central nervous system can present in various ways, making walking or maintaining balance difficult.
Brain tumors may be benign (non-cancerous) and malignant (cancerous). There are various types of brain tumors, with gliomas being the most common form of cancerous type of aggressive primary brain tumors.
Glioblastoma is considered a central nervous system (CNS) tumor, which means her brain tumor “grows and spreads very quickly,” according to the National Cancer Institute.
Accordingto the National Cancer Institute, the average survival rate is 15 months with treatment and less than six if left untreated. While there is a five-year survival rate of averaging 6 percent, those individuals will never be cancer-free. They must continue receiving radiation and chemotherapy for the rest of their lives. Again, Dr. Friedman aims to boost the survival rate beyond 20% with his poliovirus and immunotherapy still undergoing research.
Glioblastomas are tricky to treat and manage because their cells are heterogeneous, meaning each must be individually targeted to slow tumor growth. Surgery cannot remove all the cancer because the tumor burrows into the brain, so the tumor starts to grow again immediately after surgery.
WATCH: Hope for Glioblastoma Research
However, it’s important to know that brain tumors do not always cause symptoms.
Other signs of brain tumors may also include:
- Headaches
- Difficulty speaking or thinking
- Weakness
- Behavioral changes
- Vision changes
- Seizures
- Loss of hearing
- Confusion
- Memory loss
Treating Brain Tumors
Treatment options for brain cancer depend on a variety of factors, including the size and type of the tumor as well as the grade of the tumor.
Surgery, radiation, and chemotherapy are options doctors use to treat brain tumors. Cancer warriors are encouraged to talk to their doctor about their situation and the best treatment options.
The prognosis for brain cancer, or how likely it is to be cured, depends on a few things:
- The type of brain tumor
- How fast the brain tumor is growing
- The tumor’s location
- If there are DNA changes in the cells of the brain tumor
- If the entire tumor can be removed with surgery
- Your overall health
Your doctor will be able to help you understand your specific and unique circ*mstances and how they relate to your prognosis.
IVF as an Option for Patients Facing Infertility
Cancer treatmentslike chemotherapy can damage sperm in men, and hormone therapy can decrease sperm production,accordingto the National Cancer Institute. Radiation treatment can also lower sperm count and testosterone levels, impacting fertility.
These possible side effects of cancer treatment should be discussed with your doctor before starting treatment. For male cancer patients, men may have the option to store their sperm in a sperm bank before treatment to preserve their fertility.
This sperm can then be used later as part of in vitro fertilization (IVF), a procedure in which a woman’s egg is fertilized with sperm in a lab. The embryo is then transferred to a woman’s uterus to develop.
WATCH: Family planning after cancer
Cancer Treatment’s Impact on Fertility in Women
Just as cancer treatment can impact men’s fertility, women may also be affected. Some types of chemotherapy can destroy eggs in your ovaries. This can make it impossible or difficult to get pregnant later. Whether or not chemotherapy makes you infertile depends on the drug type and age since your egg supply decreases with age.
“The risk is greater the older you are,” reproductive endocrinologistDr. Jaime Knopmantold SurvivorNet.
“If you’re 39 and you get chemo that’s toxic to the ovaries, it’s most likely to make you menopausal. But, if you’re 29, your ovaries may recover because they have a higher baseline supply,” Dr. Knopman continued.
Radiation to the pelvis can also destroy eggs. It can damage the uterus, too. Surgery to your ovaries or uterus can hurt fertility as well.
Meanwhile,endocrine orhormone therapymay block or suppress essential fertility hormones and may prevent a woman from getting pregnant. This infertility may be temporary or permanent, depending on the type and length of treatment.
If you have a treatment that includes infertility as a possible side effect, your doctor won’t be able to tell you whether you will have this side effect. That’s why you should discuss your options for fertility preservation before starting treatment.
WATCH: How chemotherapy affects fertility.
Researchshows that women who have fertility preserved before breast cancer treatment are more than twice as likely to give birth after treatment than those who don’t take fertility-preserving measures.
Most women preserve their fertility before cancer treatment by freezing their eggs or embryos.
After you finish yourcancertreatment, a doctor specializing in reproductive medicine can implant one or more embryos in your uterus or the uterus of a surrogate with the hope that it will result in pregnancy.
If you freeze eggs only before treatment, a fertility specialist can use sperm and eggs to create embryos in vitro and transfer them to your uterus.
When freezing eggs or embryos is not an option, doctors may try these approaches:
Ovarian tissue freezing is an experimental approach for girls who haven’t yet reached puberty and don’t have mature eggs or for women who must begin treatment immediately and don’t have time to harvest eggs.
Ovarian suppression prevents the eggs from maturing so they cannot be damaged during treatment.
For women getting radiation to the pelvis, Ovarian transposition moves the ovaries out of the line of treatment.
In addition to preserving eggs or embryos, positive research has shown that women with early-stage hormone-receptor (HR) positive breast cancer were able to safely pause endocrine therapy (ET) to try to get pregnant, and they did not have worse short-term recurrence rates than people who did not stop endocrine therapy.
Learn more about SurvivorNet's rigorous medical review process.
Kavontae Smalls is a writer and reporter for SurvivorNet. Read More
