What It's Like to be Pregnant While Battling Breast Cancer
This Mom Got Diagnosed With Breast Cancer 1 Week After Finding Out She Was Pregnant
Warning: Major 9 Months With Courteney Cox spoilers ahead!
Lauren Perfors — a 33-year-old woman from Denver — was overjoyed when she found out she was pregnant with her first child. After buying the fixer-upper of her dreams with her husband Steve, the couple was ready to start their family. But things took a frightening turn when Lauren was diagnosed with breast cancer a week after discovering she was pregnant. In the Facebook Watch series 9 Months With Courteney Cox, viewers go through the Perfors' journey with them, and you should expect a massive amount of tears.
"I think I was really overwhelmed," Lauren told POPSUGAR. "And I think throughout the whole process, that period right after I got diagnosed but before I had a plan of action of how to go about it, was the time that I was scared. It was probably the only time that I was really scared. I had no idea what was going to happen."
"I just put my head down and took it day by day, hour by hour, and figure out ways to get through it."
Fortunately, Lauren and her doctors came up with a treatment plan. After undergoing a mastectomy, the soon-to-be mom completed three months of chemotherapy before taking a break. Because Taxol — the drug used in the second round of chemo — hasn't been tested enough to be declared safe for babies, Lauren opted to put the rest of her treatment off until their daughter was born.
While that decision was challenging enough — the cancer had potential to spread during the break — she wanted to do what was best for her unborn child. Understandably, the uncertainty weighed on her husband Steve. He was stuck somewhere in between being blindingly terrified and excited. The feeling of helplessness was often overwhelming.
"It's hard to find a support system. In fact, I would say impossible to a certain extent because there are very few people that are going through cancer and pregnancy at the same time," explained Steve. "Nobody writes a book for what happens when you wake up and you find out that your wife is bald, lopsided, and pregnant. I think to a certain extent I just put my head down and took it day by day, hour by hour, and figure out ways to get through it."
![Lauren agreed that being able to focus on her health and baby separately was a huge advantage: "It was easier to deal with it once Adelyn was outside of my body because there wasn't this constant guilt and fear anymore," she explained. "I wasn't making decisions for two in the same way I was every time I made a medical decision — either to take treatment, to go through surgery or undergo chemo — all of those things."
Although Lauren was out of the woods as far as the baby goes, she was still only halfway to the finish line: she still needed to get the results from her PET scan. Thankfully, in episode 17 of the series — when Adelyn was just two weeks old — we learn that Lauren's cancer didn't spread, meaning she was officially in remission and cancer-free.
After getting the incredible news, Lauren and Steve embraced parenthood like never before.
"One thing that Steve did a good job of from day one was convincing me that we're not treating my diagnosis like there's a chance something could go wrong," said Lauren. "If the PET scan came back and tell us something scary, we were going to go into [treatment] confidently . . . we were going to do everything right so we could never deal with this again. That's really how we looked at it from day one, so it didn't really change our approach."](https://media1.popsugar-assets.com/files/thumbor/TOUiKXTwJJ51YskpLoDUhbkmiJI/160x160/filters:format_auto-!!-:strip_icc-!!-:sharpen-!1,0,true!-/2019/03/21/820/n/24155406/f0c2e6b55c93dacf8515d2.09000003_fullsizeoutput_1167/i/Lauren-agreed-being-able-focus-her-health-baby.jpeg "Lauren agreed that being able to focus on her health and baby separately was a huge advantage: \"It was easier to deal with it once Adelyn was outside of my body because there wasn't this constant guilt and fear anymore,\" she explained. \"I wasn't making decisions for two in the same way I was every time I made a medical decision — either to take treatment, to go through surgery or undergo chemo — all of those things.\"
Although Lauren was out of the woods as far as the baby goes, she was still only halfway to the finish line: she still needed to get the results from her PET scan. Thankfully, in episode 17 of the series — when Adelyn was just two weeks old — we learn that Lauren's cancer didn't spread, meaning she was officially in remission and cancer-free.
After getting the incredible news, Lauren and Steve embraced parenthood like never before.
\"One thing that Steve did a good job of from day one was convincing me that we're not treating my diagnosis like there's a chance something could go wrong,\" said Lauren. \"If the PET scan came back and tell us something scary, we were going to go into [treatment] confidently . . . we were going to do everything right so we could never deal with this again. That's really how we looked at it from day one, so it didn't really change our approach.\"")
