Life can throw some major curve balls our way and derail our best-laid plans. Shelly and Robert Battista always wanted a big family. They were overjoyed to begin when they had their daughter Emelia, but life took them down another path instead. At 34 years old, Shelly was diagnosed with an aggressive form of breast cancer.
She would undergo treatment that included a double mastectomy and the removal of her ovaries. She survived the cancer, but that’s not all she did. Thanks to the marvels of modern medicine, she was able to give birth to identical twins just two years later.
In February 2020, Shelly returned to work after maternity leave. She was pumping in her office when she noticed something different. She had a lump on her breast. At first she thought it was a clogged milk duct, which is pretty common when breastfeeding, but it did not go away.
The global health crisis caused her to delay getting it checked out by a doctor. She did not have any family history of breast cancer. She did not think she had any of the risk factors at the time.
More from LittleThings: I Was Deeply Struggling To Co-Parent With My Ex. Then, He Got Diagnosed With Cancer
In May 2020, at 34 years old, she was officially diagnosed with triple-negative breast cancer. This specific kind of cancer grows rapidly and is tricky to treat. Shelly also learned she had genetic risk factors that made it more likely she would get ovarian cancer.
This was a huge blow to Robert and Shelly, who always wanted a big family. They felt like their dreams might not happen. "We were just starting our life together, and we get this shocking news," Shelly explained.
Thankfully, Dr. Kara Goldman, a reproductive endocrinologist and medical director of fertility preservation at Northwestern Fertility and Reproductive Medicine, was on the couple’s side. She had them begin fertility treatments before chemotherapy. She knew she had to protect Shelly’s ovaries.
"Chemotherapy that is used in young patients with triple-negative breast cancer is very toxic to the ovaries,” Dr. Goldman explained. “We started her fertility preservation journey two days later. She started medications and, two weeks later, she had eight frozen embryos.”
After her fertility treatments, Shelly started chemotherapy and would ultimately undergo 12 rounds of it. She also had a double mastectomy. Because of her genetic risk factors for other cancers, her ovaries and fallopian tubes were also removed.
It was still possible for Shelly to get pregnant because of Dr. Goldman’s work. "The ovaries and the uterus function very independently of each other. In Shelly’s case, because she did not have ovaries producing hormones, we were able to provide her the hormones necessary for pregnancy,” she explained.
The third attempt at embryo transfer was the charm that worked. Dr. Goldman called Shelly to tell her the good news personally. "We were both ecstatic and crying and yelling,” Shelly recalled.
Robert was equally thrilled. "This was the cherry on top," he said. "It was just awesome. We were going to have another kid, Shelly's healthy, everything was behind us at that point."
The couple was in for one more surprise. This time it was a happy one. They were having not just one baby, but two. The embryo had split, which happens in only 1% of cases. Nina and Margot came into this world on December 9, 2022, the very same day Shelly was declared cancer-free two years prior.
"It's like the best celebration of Shelly's cancer journey. It's like, you've beaten cancer, and now here's this extra love you get on top of it," Robert mused. "It will be the most important day of the year in our family."
