When Andres and Karen Castaño’s relationship turned serious in June 2018, there was only one issue that worried Mr. Castaño. He wanted children badly. But he wasn’t sure if Ms. Castaño did, or even could.
Ms. Castaño was 44 at the time — 16 years and 4 months older than him. She was diagnosed with breast cancer and had a double mastectomy in 2017, and was taking the drug tamoxifen, which simulated menopause. What he didn’t know was that before they met, she had frozen 10 eggs, just waiting for some “tall, dark sperm” — as she put it — to fertilize them. At 28, Mr. Castaño was very much up to the task.
They married on July 13, 2019, some 15 months after they first met at a work event in Augusta, Ga. They legally took his mother’s maiden name and after a three-week honeymoon in Greece, they started trying for a baby. But like many things in Ms. Castaño’s life — including the cancer and a flesh-eating bacteria that almost caused her to lose a leg — it wasn’t easy.
Ms. Castaño was intimately familiar with hardship. On Oct. 28, 2000, her 22-year-old sister, Wendy Soltero, was fatally shot while picking up two friends at a nightclub in Los Angeles.
“Wendy was quirky and charismatic, and a one-of-a-kind person,” Ms. Castaño said. “Very much a free spirit and so loving. She never met a stranger.”
