Table 2 Major themes and subthemes

2. Many patients had a strong and deeply held desire for biological offspring.

1.1. Facial resemblance and similarities of offspring to mothers and a good relationship with spouses/partners emerged as reasons behind the desire for biological offspring.

1.2. Cancer diagnosis can weaken the women’s desire to reproduce.

1.3. Cancer diagnosis can clarify and strengthen the women’s desire to reproduce.

2. Patients preferred oocyte cryopreservation to other fertility preservation (FP) options.

2.1. Unwillingness to preserve embryos by cryopreservation for different reasons.

2.2. Surrogacy for FP emerged as the ultimum refugium option.

3. The provided information was unclear and deficient.

3.1. Lack of clear information.

3.2. Deficient information.

3.3. Satisfactory information was only provided after patient questions.

4. Patients decided for themselves. They made decisions together with their husbands and partners for some specific reasons.

5. Religious, social and financial reasons did not emerge as factors that affect participants’ FP decisions.