Katie Thurston Responds to Criticism Following Decision Regarding Having Kids After Cancer

Katie Thurston is standing up for families navigating fertility choices, including her own.

Katie Thurston, known for her appearance on “The Bachelorette,” recently shared on Instagram Stories her thoughts on her potential journey to parenthood and the scrutiny celebrities often confront when opting for surrogacy.

During a Q&A session with her followers, Thurston was asked if her doctors had indicated that she would need to utilize a surrogate to have children with her husband, comedian Jeff Arcuri.

Thurston diplomatically responded, “I prefer not to think of medical decisions as absolute necessities, similar to the saying ‘never say never.’ However, Jeff and I have discussed the importance of prioritizing my health and foresee that, in due time, surrogacy may be the most suitable choice for us.”

She added a pointed reminder, telling her fans, “[This is] a friendly reminder to stop judging celebrities who pursue surrogacy. You don’t know what they have going on in their personal lives.”

Thurston also revealed she and Arcuri have made the decision to freeze embryos before she begins her cancer treatment next month.

“I’m basically putting my ovaries into a temporary menopausal state (I like to say hibernation) to protect them from chemo,” she explained. “It will also reduce estrogen production, which is particularly important in hormonereceptor-ER+/PR+ breast cancer as estrogen can fuel cancer growth.”

The former “Bachelor” contestant first shared her breast cancer diagnosis in mid-February, revealing that she was diagnosed with stage three breast cancer. At the time, she spoke candidly about the emotional toll the news took on her.

“Despair. Anger. Sadness. Denial. And then strength. Purposeful. Ready. I cried a lot. I tried to even make a video instead of this post and couldn’t,” she wrote.

On Friday, Thurston shared an update, revealing her cancer has progressed to stage four. Doctors have discovered that it has spread to her liver.

“I know stage four can sound very scary, and it can be,” she admitted. Still, she remains hopeful. Thurston said she is “very optimistic” about the future, sharing that she is “triple positive” and the cancerous spots on her liver are “fairly small and detected early.”

Earlier this month, Thurston and Arcuri quietly tied the knot in their New York City backyard, surrounded only by their parents. The intimate wedding came just before she begins treatment.

“There’s a lot of emotions that come in with chemo and the impact and the health, and we don’t know what the next year looks like,” she told Us Weekly of the timing.

Thurston praised her new husband for his unwavering support. “It was this kind gesture of him saying, truly, in sickness and in health. He is proving that he’s here to stay,” the former reality television star said. “He shows up every day and he does it in ways that just continue to surprise.”

Katie Thurston recently opened up about the early signs that led to her breast cancer diagnosis, revealing how disbelief and assumptions nearly delayed critical treatment.

The “Bachelorette” alum took to Instagram Stories earlier this year to share the details of her journey, beginning with the moment she first noticed a lump.

“I had a small lump in my breast around the 10’oclock [sic] spot,” she wrote on Saturday, February 15. “I discovered it myself. Thought maybe it was my period, [or] maybe it was muscle soreness from working out. But, eventually, this lump never went away.”

Thurston explained that she’d previously had a “benign cyst removed” from the same breast, which made her initially dismiss the new lump as something similar. “[I] thought maybe it was that again. Went to the doc thinking it was going to be nothing,” she said. “I was wrong.”

Unlike many breast cancer cases that present without pain, Thurston noted that this lump was actually painful—a factor that caused her to second-guess the seriousness of what she was feeling.

“[That] probably led to more doubt and delay on getting it checked out as most [websites] will say ‘most breast cancers don’t hurt,’” she wrote. “I thought it was PMS or working out.”

After being evaluated by a doctor, she learned it was, in fact, breast cancer.