Antoinette Ramos survived Hodgkin lymphoma, and so did her chance of having children.

It was Spring 2005 when 25-year-old Antoinette Ramos was dressing for a very special occasion – her college roommate's wedding. Standing before the mirror, she noticed something unusual. One collarbone seemed less defined than the other. Feeling around, she found a lump the size of a ping-pong ball.

A visit to her doctor revealed that Ramos had advanced Hodgkin lymphoma. Lymph nodes from her abdomen to her collarbone were swollen. "I took the news quite well," Ramos said. "My aunt had this cancer before."

Still, she wasn't fully prepared for what would come next.

Her doctor told her that chemotherapy would be absolutely necessary and he listed the possible side effects, one of which was infertility. “Don’t worry,” her doctor said. “I’ve had lots of patients who’ve gone on to have children.”

But Ramos did worry. She knew she wanted to have children one day. "The fact that choice might be taken away from me really rocked my whole existence," she said. "I didn't cry when I found out I had cancer; I cried when I found out it could affect my fertility."

Ramos turned tears into action. Before cancer treatment began, she engaged in an intense search for a way to preserve her ability to have children in the future. She originally planned on embryo freezing, but ultimately wasn't comfortable asking a friend to be a sperm donor or using an anonymous donor. That led her to an experimental procedure: egg freezing.

It also led her to Fertile Hope, a nonprofit organization created by a young cancer survivor to help others cope with the fertility issues that can accompany cancer treatment.

For two weeks, Ramos injected herself with hormones to stimulate production of her eggs.

"I hated needles, but I had to get used to that," she said. "Then I'd go in every other day to have an ultrasound to monitor egg development."

Her efforts paid off. Her medical team harvested 19 eggs, which are now sitting in deep freeze, waiting for the day Ramos needs them. The procedure was expensive, but Fertile Hope had a program called Sharing Hope, which helped pay the $10,000 cost.

The day after doctors harvested Ramos’ eggs, she began her cancer treatment – receiving chemotherapy once a week from May through August of 2005. After chemotherapy, she needed additional surgery and a hospitalization. Still, Ramos refused to accept that she would be anything but fine.

That positive attitude paid off. So did the knowledge that she had done everything she could to preserve the option to have children. "If I hadn't been able to take care of that, I don't know that I would have been able to go through with it," said Ramos.

Today, Antoinette Ramos is cancer free and getting on with her life. She has a busy job in commercial real estate in San Francisco and is planning to walk a half-marathon to raise funds for breast cancer research.