Pregnant...With Cancer

Amie’s newborn helped her beat the disease

- Joe Cusack

Screaming with excitement, I ran from the bathroom all the way downstairs into the living room, waving the pregnancy test in the air.

‘Look!’ I yelled. ‘It’s positive!’

My partner Chris stared in amazement before throwing his arms around me.

It was the moment we’d both been waiting for – and neither of us could believe it was finally here.

Chris and I had first met in 2007 at work at a youth project. We just clicked straightaway.

The following year, we began trying for a baby.

At first, we didn’t give it too much thought.

But as the months turned into years and nothing happened, we naturally began to worry.

‘What if it never happens for us?’ I said.

In 2010, we were sent for fertility tests, which showed Chris had a low sperm count.

‘Your only hope is IVF,’ a doctor told us.

We were upset, but determined to stay positive.

Our IVF began at the start of 2015. And that November, on only our second attempt, my pregnancy test was positive.

We were thrilled.

We even kept our pregnancy test as a souvenir.

Everything seemed to go well, though I had severe morning sickness and pelvic pain.

I suffered with severe constipation, too.

‘All perfectly normal,’ my midwife told me. ‘Nothing for you to worry about'.

I’d wanted to be pregnant for so long that I didn’t like to complain about the side-effects.