Ben Hanan, a movie-maker who shares incredible stories to motivate people and draw attention toward important issues of life, has recently shared his own story.
The story revolves around his wife, Sarah, who was diagnosed with breast cancer during the seventh month into her pregnancy but still gave birth to her baby.
Speaking to Health.com, Ben said: “Instantly you start thinking, what does this mean for our future? Does this mean we’re going to have to choose between her or the baby?
“That’s the first thought: Well, are we going to be able to keep this baby? Are we going to be able to keep [Sarah]?
“Are we going to have to make that choice and say, no we want to keep this baby and let [Sarah] have a lesser chance of survival?”
Ben also shared a photo of his wife and his newborn child on Reddit, which soon went viral.
Ben, 27, and Sarah, 29, were married for around three years when they finally decided to have their first baby. Their life together was starting to take shape and things were settling down – the couple bought a duplex just adjacent to Minneapolis and, finally in May 2018, Sarah was pregnant.
Seven months into her pregnancy, Sarah noticed a lump in her breast but didn’t pay much heed to it, thinking it was just another change in her body related to pregnancy.
But she soon discovered things were not that simple.
Sarah was diagnosed with stage 2A of an acute form of breast cancer. Luckily, cancer had not yet metastasized but she had to undergo treatment to cure it.
“It sounds like a cliché, but there’s nothing you can do to prepare yourself for that,” Ben said.
“You think it’s something that would never happen to you. It’s just something that happens to people in general. But it doesn’t work that way.”
According to the American Society of Clinical Oncology, breast cancer is the most prevalent form of cancer affecting pregnant women. One in every 3,000 pregnant women is diagnosed with it every year.
The exact nature of the treatment depends on the type of cancer but there’s still an open-ended debate on whether or not the treatment of cancer has any long-term effects on the well-being of the baby later in life.
Ben and Sarah had a difficult decision to make at that point, to start Sarah’s chemo right then or to wait for the birth.
Delaying chemo meant decreasing Sarah’s chances of recovery and starting the chemo during the pregnancy meant possibly compromising the child’s health.
“We debated a lot about starting chemo before the baby was born,” Ben said.
“Out of all of the doctors we talked to, and we talked to quite a few, none of them had any serious concerns that it would affect the baby, so we just kind of had to choose to trust.”
Sarah finally made the difficult decision of getting two chemo sessions before the birth of her child. When she started the chemo, the doctor found out that her tumor had grown from 2.5 to 4.4 centimeters in just 20 days.
“Coming to terms with the hair loss that will happen, the inability to breastfeed after the baby is born (because of the chemo), and many other things was a struggle for her,” Ben said in a blog, which he wrote a few days after Sarah’s chemo started.
“Emotionally it was and will be a roller-coaster over the next 6 months or longer. But we keep seeing more of God’s plan,” he added.
Pregnancy is a very difficult time on its own and chemo had made things even tougher. Ben, who likes to see the brighter side of things, said that this hard time has made their marriage a stronger one.
“There are a lot of people with sadder stories than ours,” Ben said, adding that now it is easier for them to face the situation as they’ve got their child in a completely healthy state.
Noah Benjamin Hanan was born on January 14th at 6 am.
Speaking of the experience of becoming a parent, Ben said: “It’s just surreal, everyone always says it’s indescribable, but it really is magical to see this new person appear in front of you.
“It’s pretty amazing that my wife has the opportunity to raise a person who can hopefully see life the way we do after they go through hard things.”
Sarah is improving but is not out of danger yet. The doctors need to determine via a series of tests whether or not to go for mastectomy.
There might be a chance of her getting other types of cancer later in life and it all translates to a complicated life for the family for some time.
Ben said he wanted to share the story of his own life with people to help them get out of hard times.
He said: “I think hope is real. I think it was given to us for a reason… Things have a reason for happening, I don’t believe the universe is just chaos and random.
“We’ve already seen that in our lives. It had a reason for happening, whether we like the methodology that got us there or not.
“I believe everything has a reason, and I’m excited to see what that reason is.”
Replaced!