"So.....got kids?"

It happened. Last night was the first time I'd encountered the dreaded question. The one that I had no idea how I would handle until it was shoved in my face and I had no choice but to answer.

Steve and I were out at a murder mystery evening that his parents had bought us for Christmas. The night was brilliant - the drinks flowed, the actors were great and we were put on a table of people that we were able to convince to go with our answer for who the murderer was and their motive. Luckily we were right (one of only two tables who got it, out of about 12. Brag brag smug brag).

Sat next to me were a really lovely young couple, about the same age as Steve and I. They had come along with their super cute 14 month old daughter after their babysitter had cancelled at the last minute. Being completely useless at making small talk, babies are always a great way to start a conversation and we quickly found that these two could chat! They were so nice and we were soon getting on like a house on fire, discussing the clues and deciding on questions we needed to ask each character as they came round to our table. A sub-team of super sleuths!

Between courses and character visits, we'd have a good natter about life. They were both really open from the word go, telling us how they'd both had children from previous relationships before getting together and unexpectedly falling pregnant with their plus-one for the evening. She had no problems telling me she'd had a troubled relationship before and had gone through a rotten divorce, how she had lost a baby and how her current relationship hadn't all been smooth sailing. It was a breath of fresh air to just sit and chat with someone who didn't hold back, was completely honest and had no self pity for the tough ride she'd had. I felt a real connection with her - I don't know if that's because I usually find it so hard at these kind of events to feel comfortable with someone I don't know well, thanks to my shy nature, or because we'd been through some similar things. But I would still never in a million years feel confident enough to start telling a complete stranger all about my private life, and I'm so jealous of people who can do that.

But then it came. It was inevitable, after everything we'd already talked about. We hadn't given much away about ourselves, so it was the natural question for them to ask.

"So, do you guys have kids?"

I looked at Steve, he looked back at me. Both of us unsure how to answer, because we knew where it was going.

"Steve does. A daughter."

That worked as a distraction for a bit, and they chatted about that. But I was mentally preparing. It was coming, it had to.

"But none together? Do you think you will?"

Cue another look between ourselves. We had a split second to decide how to play this hand. There were two ways it could go.

I could tell her everything. That I couldn't have children. That I'd had cancer and the treatment had meant that I couldn't carry a baby so we'd have to look into surrogacy if we wanted to have a child together. And that was expensive, and tricky, and would take a long time.

Or we could awkwardly laugh and make out that it's maybe something for the future but not right now.

"Hehehe, well maybe but we'll see." *jokey nervous look at Steve*

"Oh you should, it would be a stunner with you two!"

*genuine nervous look at Steve*. What do we do now? We'd run out of lines for this bit. I was hoping that people wouldn't keep pressing once you've given them a couple of awkward and vague responses. But this girl, as lovely as she was, didn't seem to have that filter. Or recognise that we were done.

*awkward laugh, awkward look, awkwardly hide inner sadness*.

It's a strange thing to feel so numb about something that is so sad. And I do feel sad about it, but it still doesn't feel real a lot of the time. I know it's true and I know it's about me, but it's much easier to shrug it off and not really talk about it or deal with it.

I think we played it right last night. If there was anyone I could have opened up with, it would have been this couple. But I just didn't want to. I didn't want to be the sad girl that can't have a baby. I didn't want the pitying looks or the positive cheer-leading or the cliches. I didn't want the conversation to potentially turn awkward, or for them to feel like they had to be careful with what they said. Or be apologetic for the things they'd already said. Because there was no need.

I think it was also right for Steve. Although the 'honest' answer is all about my history, it turns into a future story about us both. What is wrong with me affects Steve and opens him up to questioning and judgement too, and it's not fair for me to make that decision for him.

For all the times my friends and family have teased me that all I talk about is cancer, there are an equal number of times that I really don't want to talk about it. Last night I was just a nice young girl with a nice young boyfriend who might one day have a baby together. The hows and the whys didn't matter, and we weren't judged on that. The fear of that nice couple suddenly changing how they saw us, how they felt about us, is what stopped me saying anything. I'm not embarrassed of what has happened to me (hence constantly spouting about it on social media!) because it doesn't change who I am as a person, it just changes how my little story might go. But last night there was fear of becoming embarrassed. And I couldn't face it.

I'm two weeks away from finding out my MRI results. It feels like an incredibly long wait this time, which is strange when I don't feel at all worried about the outcome. The MRI took just over an hour this time, which is a good 20 minutes longer than normal. I lay there for quite a lot of it worrying that something was wrong because there were big pauses between each scan, which isn't normal. There also wasn't a lot of communication over the little intercom like their usually is, to keep me updated on what's happening. When I was leaving I asked the nurse if there was anything wrong with my scan and she reassured me that it was a new machine so each scan took longer to set up than normal, making sure they were doing it right. A smile and a touch on my arm was all it took to relax me and stop me thinking I was dying. It might have helped for them to have told me that beforehand though. Especially as they hadn't sorted out the music player on the new machine yet, so all I had to distract me were my own thoughts. Never a good thing.

I'm so hoping that this scan is clear. It's been just over a year since I had my Jim-Bob removal surgery, and since they've never been able to find any further signs of cancer in my body since then, I'm kind of declaring myself 1 year clear (!!). But of course the doctors will say that a year after finishing treatment is when I reach that official milestone. So that's only another 4 months. Easy peasy, right?

Wrong. The closer I get to that 'finish line' (it's never finished, I know that), the closer we get to being able to think about babies. The real possibility that I might be well enough, both short and long term, to start looking into how this whole surrogacy thing works. But with that means dealing with my infertility. And that's a scary prospect. Because I don't want to deal with it. I want to find myself accidentally pregnant like so many other people seem to do. And accepting that won't happen is shit, frankly.

But at least I've reached a new milestone this weekend. I managed to bumble my way through my first "So...got kids?" conversation without any drama, any tears or any regrets. I might be smashing this post-cancer life after all! x