The Luck I Didn’t See at First

When I repeated genetic testing during my most recent IVF cycle, I expected it to be uneventful. I’d already done it before; it felt like just another box to check. But then the results came back: I carry an ATM gene mutation, which puts me at about a 20% lifetime risk of breast cancer.

It was one of those moments where the room doesn’t spin, exactly, but everything suddenly feels sharper. Clearer. Heavier. I had been focused on getting through another retrieval, another transfer… and now here I was, learning I’d need a mammogram and breast ultrasound every year, plus a breast MRI six months in between. Not someday. Not “after 40.” Now.

What made it even harder to process was that it didn’t feel abstract. One of my best friends died of breast cancer at 31. I watched her fight. I watched how fast it moved. I watched how young she was. So reading the word risk wasn’t just informational; it felt like someone tapping on a bruise I’d spent years protecting. 

And yet, life didn’t pause. I was running a business, managing a household, juggling calendars and deadlines. There’s something surreal about learning you need ongoing surveillance in the middle of answering work emails.

But here’s what I’ve settled into: this isn’t a sentence. It’s a roadmap. Knowing my risk means I get to do something. Not everything, but something. I can monitor, ask questions, stay ahead, and refuse to pretend this isn’t hard while still moving forward.

And while the screenings are another layer to an already full life, they’re also a lifeline — a way to stay ahead of something that once blindsided someone I loved.

I didn’t choose this knowledge, but I feel pretty damn lucky to be able to decide what I do with it.