This Mom Got Diagnosed With Breast Cancer 1 Week After Finding Out She Was Pregnant

Updated on 3/29/2019 at 3:25 PM

Lauren and Steve Perfors

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."

In order to be the best partner he could be for his wife of eight years, he needed to prioritize his mental health the best he could.

"Sometimes it was being around other people and talking to friends and other times it was going for a run or a bike ride by myself and just stepping away from the situation," he said. "At the end of the day, my main focus was always trying to make sure that when I was with Lauren I was having a good attitude and supporting her. Sometimes I just needed to go mow the lawn."

Despite being stuck in any woman's worst nightmare, Lauren remained positive throughout her pregnancy. But as Lauren entered her third trimester, the pair found out that their child was underweight. She pushed forward and gave birth to a beautiful baby girl named Adelyn after 24 hours of labor.

Having a smooth labor was certainly important for the new mom, but Steve was also able to breathe a sigh of relief for the first time in months. "I felt an overwhelming sense of relief," he said. "While Lauren was pregnant and dealing with cancer, there wasn't necessarily a whole lot I could do. I felt like a bystander to some extent. Now that Adelyn's here, I feel a lot more useful. I felt a huge weight lifted off my shoulders. I thought, 'Whew, all right. If we make it through that.' After she was born we could separate cancer and pregnancy officially."

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."

Lauren continued: "I was looking forward to being a mom. I've always looked forward to having a baby since we made the decision. I was even more appreciative of the opportunity to be a mom than I otherwise would have been because of the new perspective I had of possibly never getting the chance."

For Steve — who couldn't be more grateful to have both his wife and his daughter by his side seven months later — the simple day-to-day pleasures of fatherhood are some of the moments he cherishes the most.

"Just watching Adelyn is amazing," he said. "It's fun to watch a little human learn and grow. Every day, there's always something different, she discovers a new body part or a new sound she can make. It makes life a lot simpler, right? You go home and who cares about work or anything else. She's happy because she discovered her big toe!"