- At 20 weeks pregnant, Sarah Williams was diagnosed with breast cancer
- It had taken a years, and several failed rounds of IVF for her to conceive her second child
- Sarah endured five rounds of chemotherapy while pregnant with Joshua
- Minutes after her c-section, doctors carried out a mastectomy
- Some research suggests IVF can cause cancer as it increases hormone levels
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Sarah Williams nuzzled her baby boy’s face and breathed in his delicious newborn scent. As surgeons stitched up her C-section incision, a besotted Sarah and husband Carl couldn’t take their eyes off their son.
‘He was absolutely perfect,’ she says. ‘He had a shock of really dark hair and lovely long eyelashes. At 6lbs 7oz he was a good weight too. Carl and I decided to call him Joshua. I’d been through so much but he was here and he was healthy. He was our miracle baby.’
Most new mothers can relate to this sense of elation, but for Sarah the moment was even more poignant. Half an hour after surgeons had delivered her baby she was put under general anaesthetic and operated on again — this time to remove her right breast.
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Miracle baby: Sarah Williams , pictured shortly after son Joshua’s birth, was diagnosed with breast cancer when she was 20 weeks pregnant
At 20 weeks pregnant, Sarah, 40, from Connah’s Quay, North Wales had been diagnosed with aggressive breast cancer. In a nightmare scenario for any expectant mother, she had to endure five rounds of chemotherapy while baby Joshua was developing inside her.
Now doctors were going to carry out a mastectomy minutes after her C-section, the first time that surgeons at the Wrexham Maelor hospital, North Wales, had performed such an operation.
‘The thought of saying goodbye to Carl and Joshua so soon after he was born makes me cry even now,’ says Sarah. ‘I told Carl I loved him and told him to keep my babies safe. I’d written a letter to my daughter Sasha, who had just turned five. I told her that I loved her. I told her to love herself and be happy with herself and always give 100 per cent in everything she does. I said I never wanted to leave her. But I had no idea if I’d make it.
‘Although I had every confidence in the surgeons, I knew I might not survive and all I could think was: “Please let me get through this. I want to spend my life with my family.â€â€™
Something to live for: Sarah, 40, with her husband Carl and two children Sasha, five, and Joshua, eight months
Sarah, who works in customer services for a pharmaceutical company, and Carl, 35, a printer, met 14 years ago and married in Mexico in 2007. Within months Sarah was pregnant but sadly miscarried at ten weeks. Yet two months later she was pregnant again with Sasha, five.
‘The miscarriage was devastating and I was scared I’d never become a mother so I felt blessed to get pregnant again so quickly,’ she says. Given how easily she conceived Sasha, Sarah assumed it’d be straightforward if they wanted a second child. The couple started trying when she was 36, but after six months of trying nothing was happening.
Blessed: Sarah and Carl with baby Sasha
Sarah says: ‘I began to worry. I was nearly 37 years old and I kept thinking: “Why did I leave it so late?â€
‘After a few more months I went to the doctor for tests. They couldn’t find any problems but mentioned IVF. We weren’t eligible for NHS funding so we took out a £14,000 loan and started IVF in January 2012. They collected 31 eggs and 26 were fertilised. We felt sure one of those eggs would give us a baby.’
Sarah underwent three rounds of IVF, but sadly none worked. By the end of the year they had used up their money and were emotionally and physically drained.
‘I’d reacted very badly to the IVF,’ says Sarah. ‘My ovaries swelled up. The journey home after they took my eggs was agony.
‘By the end of the third round we’d used up the loan and we decided that enough was enough. We already had Sasha and decided we should count ourselves lucky.’
Carl adds: ‘IVF was very stressful. When it came to an end it was a big relief.’ But fate had a surprise in store.
‘My periods had been very irregular thanks to the IVF so when I missed two last year I didn’t think much about it,’ says Sarah. ‘I’d even joked to a friend that I was going through the change. It was only when I began to feel a little odd that I decided to take a pregnancy test and it came out positive. I couldn’t believe it. I rang Carl at work and he came home. We were so excited we just hugged and cried all evening.’
However, it wasn’t the only change to Sarah’s body. In January last year, four months before she discovered she was pregnant, Sarah noticed the nipple on her right breast had hardened.
‘My nipple was swollen and hard, as if there was gristle behind it. I assumed it was due to the IVF which had finished a month earlier,’ she says.Â
Longed-for family: Sarah and Carl (left) before her diagnosis, and Sarah after her diagnosis while pregnant with Joshua, with Sasha (right)
‘But Carl was concerned. He’d read that the hormones in IVF could cause changes in the breast so I went to the hospital and had an ultrasound and a mammagram. Nothing came back on either of them. We’ve since discovered that might be because I’m relatively young, meaning my breasts are more dense so the cancer is harder to detect. But at the time, it was a relief. They told me to come back in four months if there were more changes.’
By April her breast had worsened. ‘It wasn’t soft and natural,’ Sarah says. ‘It was hard like an implant. But then I assumed pregnancy was causing it.’
DID YOU KNOW?
Breast cancer during pregnancy is very rare, occurring in just 1 in 3,000 pregnancies
She returned to the hospital for her four month check-up and had a biopsy. A week later she went back alone, confident that it was nothing more serious than a blocked milk duct. She was completely unprepared for what happened next.
‘The surgeon said: “Sarah, it’s not good news†and my first thought was: “I’m going to need antibioticsâ€. I wasn’t expecting it when he said: “You have cancer in your breastâ€.
‘I was 20 weeks pregnant and my one and only thought was: “Would it harm my unborn child?†There was no question of getting rid of the baby. We’d already been told there was a one in 66 chance of it having Down’s and decided that we’d love it whatever happened. But at this stage no one could tell me whether me or my baby would live.
‘I couldn’t speak for crying. The breast cancer nurses were fantastic and called Carl to come.’
Looking towards the future: Sarah aims to raise over £3,500 for Cancer Research UK
Carl says: ‘I was at work when I got the call. My mind went blank. It’s hard to admit, because I can’t imagine life without Joshua now, but at the time I wasn’t thinking about the baby. All I could think about was Sarah.
‘We were told it was an aggressive sort of cancer — Grade 3. It was as if someone had ripped out my heart and stamped on it.’
Because of the rarity of her case, Sarah was told that several experts would need to meet to decide on her treatment. ‘All we did that week was hug each other and cry,’ she says. ‘Thanks to more scans we knew the cancer hadn’t spread but I was unbelievably scared.
Tough time: Sarah admits that when the mastectomy was first mentioned she was distraught
‘Until that moment I’d been at one of the loveliest points in my life— pregnant with a baby we’d tried so hard for, a beautiful little girl and the best husband in the world. I couldn’t get my head around the fact that I might leave them.’
There are no official figures for the number of women diagnosed with cancer during pregnancy, but according to the charity Mummy’s Star, it’s thought to be around one in every thousand, meaning around 3,000 women every year find themselves in Sarah’s position.
The decision over whether to have chemotherapy is a painfully difficult one. Earlier this week, the Mail told the story of Nicola Cockx who delayed potentially life-saving treatment for her bone marrow cancer for the sake of her unborn child, and paid the ultimate price.
The young mother died eight months after the birth of her daughter.
‘A breast cancer diagnosis during and around pregnancy is uncommon and treatment is a balance between the best treatment for the mother and the risks of that treatment to the baby,’ says Dr Anne Armstrong, consultant at The Christie specialist cancer hospital in Manchester, who was involved in Sarah’s case. ‘For example, it is not possible to give chemotherapy very close to delivery because of potential for low blood counts in the mother and baby causing a risk of infections and bleeding,’
However, the following week, Sarah’s oncologist Dr Win Soe decided that it was safe to give her chemotherapy while pregnant.
‘I couldn’t believe what I was hearing,’ says Sarah. ‘I’ve worked in the pharmaceutical industry for over 20 years and knew how toxic chemo was so I felt sure it would harm or even kill the baby. But our oncologist said that the placenta should absorb the toxins and the baby should hopefully be fine.’
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The comments below have been moderated in advance.
dynofon,
Ynys Mon,
4 hours ago
What a brave caring lady, I sincerely hope everything goes well for her.
tuska,
cy, Cyprus,
5 hours ago
What a wonderful and strong woman. Sarah is a real STAR!
Vanilla,
Somewhere in the mists, United Kingdom,
5 hours ago
This is strong inspirational story. I feel ashamed about my daily “miseries†like money, weight.
Rufus20,
Rickmansworth, United Kingdom,
5 hours ago
I don’t understand why a mastectomy was not done when the cancer was discovered? That makes far more sense to remove the cancer then to poison a baby with chemo!!!
Jellybean,
NORTHAMPTON, United Kingdom,
5 hours ago
I so hope you live a long and Happy life, very brave lady.
ozzie mum,
knutsford,
5 hours ago
What a woman if courage and a strong supportive husband too.
Bless her family and may she recover to enjoy life!
nordicone,
London, United Kingdom,
5 hours ago
The lifelong “chemical imprisonment†of women, changing their natural hormonal balance from puberty to old age with Birth Controll Pills, IVF and HRT is responsible for a lot of cancer diagnosed in women.
The medical companies make a lot of money on the back of women. 1/2 of IVF “treatments†of women are when the man is infirtile and the woman has to go through the hell of IVF to realese eggs that can be injected with the few sperms that are healthy, this is madness.
ay I suggest Condoms, finding a fertile man(or spermdonor) and relaxing about menopause and enjoying life.
IT IS NOT AN ILLNES BEING A WOMAN, but its a nice earner for the medical companies if they can make us think so!
Andy.simpson4,
Shoreham by sea, United Kingdom,
5 hours ago
Well done Sarah for going with your instincts really as that is all you can do realy.
I lost my wife to cancer back in 2007 so do appreciate how difficult it has been but hey you have a lovely family and long life ahead so enjoy yeah.
daniel83,
Littlehampton, United Kingdom,
5 hours ago
Amazing! She is a genuine hero! 3
jackrussell,
planetearth, United Kingdom,
5 hours ago
WHO ARE THESE IDIOTS RED ARROWING ! they really need to get a life.
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