(Unplanned Stories) — She was diagnosed with stage 4 Hodgkin lymphoma while pregnant with her unplanned baby and started chemotherapy at 12 weeks pregnant. She has been cancer-free for over a year.
Vanessa didn’t expect to get pregnant in March 2023, just a few weeks after her second miscarriage. She already had two boys, who were ages 2 and 3, and thought her body couldn’t carry a baby anymore. She felt heartbroken and discouraged from her two miscarriages and wanted to heal mentally and emotionally.
So when Vanessa held a positive pregnancy test in her hands, her heart filled with fear and anxiety – instead of joy.
“I really thought that I was going to lose that pregnancy,” she recalls.
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Worried that she would miscarry, Vanessa contacted her midwife, who scheduled an early ultrasound and prescribed her progesterone to help maintain the pregnancy.
That six-week ultrasound appointment offered an unexpected gift to Vanessa and her husband, Josue – they got to hear their baby’s heartbeat, a rare moment to experience that early during a pregnancy.
“God really gifted that to us just so that I could have some peace,” Vanessa says.
But that peace didn’t last long.
At 10 weeks, Vanessa took a non-invasive prenatal test (NIPT), which screens for chromosomal abnormalities and determines the baby’s sex. Her results came back abnormal.
“My white blood counts [from the blood work] were super high, and things were just way off in my actual NIPT. It said atypical. I remember telling my husband that I hope there’s something wrong with me and not with the baby because I was really scared to lose the pregnancy,” Vanessa explains.
Cancer diagnosis
In May 2023, Vanessa met with a maternal-fetal medicine specialist who found multiple swollen lymph nodes on her neck and collarbone. She was admitted to a hospital that same day to undergo several biopsies.
After a week at the hospital, Vanessa received the news no mother wants to hear – a diagnosis of stage 4 Hodgkin lymphoma, a cancer that affects the body’s lymphatic system.
“I went from one day feeling what I thought was healthy and happy and having my kids and my health and then literally the next day having this diagnosis, being pregnant, not knowing where my future lies,” she says.
Vanessa was concerned that her oncologist (cancer doctor) would suggest an abortion. But thankfully, God connected her to gracious and compassionate doctors who cared about her life and her unborn child’s life.
“I had my mind made that I was not going to be comfortable with [abortion]. I have a conviction for that. I know that life starts at the moment of conception. I know that God is the creator of life,” she explains.
At stage 4, the cancer had already spread to Vanessa’s spleen and liver. She had to start chemotherapy while she was 12 weeks pregnant to give her a fighting chance of beating cancer.
If Vanessa had not had her unplanned pregnancy, she would not have known about her stage 4 cancer. She gives all the glory to God for using her pregnancy to save her life.
“My daughter, Sarah, was a means that God used for my diagnosis so that I could be here today,” Vanessa says.
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Fighting cancer
Vanessa underwent chemotherapy every two weeks during her pregnancy. She also had multiple visits to the ER due to the harsh side effects of the treatment.
“I was very tired, nauseated, and just off from chemo,” Vanessa recalls. “I wasn’t able to really care for my boys. I had a lot of help from family and friends. It made it very difficult because I was carrying a life. Then, at the same time, my boys needed me. They were really little, and they didn’t understand what was going on as much as we tried to talk to them about it.”
By the time she was seven months along, Vanessa’s health started to decline. She experienced weight loss and night sweats. Her oncologist found a new swollen lymph node. On top of all that, her baby girl wasn’t growing as she should have been and was diagnosed with intrauterine growth restriction (IUGR).
Because of IUGR, Sarah was born via induction at 35 weeks, weighing 3 lbs. She graduated from the NICU after 10 days – a testament to God’s goodness and faithfulness.
“By the grace of God, Sarah didn’t need any assistance that we thought she might have needed. She had some UV light therapy for jaundice for a day and a feeding tube for a couple of days. But other than that, her breathing was normal and she was able to regulate her body temperature shortly after,” Vanessa says.
‘God, I fully surrender to you’
Several days after birth, Vanessa needed a PET scan because she stopped responding to treatment. The scan showed that her cancer had spread to other areas of her body.
“It was very heartbreaking because when I was first diagnosed, I would get comments like, ‘Oh, you have the good cancer.’ They call Hodgkin the good cancer because it’s very treatable. There are a lot of treatment plans, but not everyone responds the same. The first line of treatment is called ABVD, which is chemotherapy, and 90% of people respond to that. I fell in the 10% that did not. So I started getting very nervous and just really emotional,” Vanessa explains.
Vanessa’s cancer prognosis was poor, so she started immunotherapy at 15 days postpartum. What followed were more setbacks and challenges – a brain cancer scare and a blood clot in her heart.
“I felt so defeated, and my hands were tied. I was like, God, I fully surrender to you. I don’t have any strength in me anymore,” she recalls.
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After 23 sessions of radiation to her neck and armpit areas, her oncologist found that certain parts of her body were resistant to the treatment. Vanessa needed a stem cell transplant, which required her to undergo mobilization chemotherapy to prepare her body for the procedure.
“I really believe that the pregnancy really helped, those hormones or something, to keep a lot of my hair. And then once I delivered my daughter and I went through chemotherapy, my hair just started falling out,” Vanessa says. “That was really hard on my boys to see and on me as well … As a woman, our hair is part of our look. As much as I don’t want to be vain in that sense, it was more so a reminder of my reality, to physically see myself in that way.”
Vanessa spent a week receiving injections to stimulate her bone marrow to produce stem cells, a procedure that hit her body with a lot of pain. She needed help to walk and couldn’t eat for about a week.
“Once I did my actual transplant, I was just very sick, and that’s really the time that I felt like I was at my lowest,” she says. “The only thing that would give me some comfort is for them to administer morphine every day so I could just stay comfortable because it was very painful.”
Vanessa stayed in the hospital for three weeks, her faith being tested to its limits. She felt so weak and was afraid she wouldn’t recover. She was worried if she would be able to care for her children.
But during that time, Vanessa learned to fully surrender her trials to God. She drew closer to God, who gave her the strength and the courage to persevere.
“At first, I was very scared of death, and that’s not to say I take it lightly now. But, as Christians, we know where our hope lies and that’s in Christ. I know where my eternity lies, and I know that I have peace and comfort in that. But at that time, I lost sense of that hope because it meant leaving those that I loved behind and it meant thinking of leaving my kids behind without a mom. But God was so merciful to show me that He is enough. This is why Christ died for us so that we can have hope in Him. One day, there will be no more suffering and there would be no more disease,” Vanessa says.
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Vanessa credits her husband’s love and support for helping her fight cancer. Josue went above and beyond as her primary caregiver and worked hard to make sure their family was cared for during a challenging season. Vanessa and her family also received overwhelming support and encouragement from their church family.
After a successful stem cell transplant, Vanessa has been cancer-free since May 2024. She finished her cancer and maintenance treatments in August 2024. Her daughter, Sarah, is a beautiful and thriving toddler who will be celebrating her second birthday this October.
Vanessa’s encouragement to those facing an unplanned pregnancy:
We are not creators of ourselves. We have a creator, and God doesn’t make mistakes. He uses every life for a purpose, so I would tell them that that life is important to God, and He created it for a reason. He has given us the gift to carry that life. It’s not up to us to make those decisions, but we have to trust God.
Reprinted with permission from Unplanned Stories.
