A woman afflicted with cancer refused treatment to save her unborn child, and then died six weeks after giving birth.
Elizabeth Joice, 36, was treated for breast cancer and told that chemotherapy -- which put her in early menopause -- would prevent her from ever getting pregnant. Miraculously, she learned soon after she was pregnant.
"The amount of elation that we felt when we found out that we were pregnant, I mean, I'm not one for talking miracles, but it very much felt like a miracle bringing a child into this world," Joice's husband Max told The Indy Channel.
But a few months into Joice's pregnancy she found out her cancer, which she was officially declared free of in 2010, had returned. The non-differentiated sarcoma was surgically removed from her back, but a full body scan to detect any cancer spreading would hurt the baby. Not knowing if the cancer had metastasized, she made the decision to put her baby's life before hers and refused treatment.
"It was incredibly difficult to want to enjoy this amazing moment as much as you possibly can, yet to know that you're facing something so incredibly dire, and the chances didn't look good at that point," Max said.
Joice gave birth to daughter Lily Ann in January via an early caesarean section, and despite difficulty breathing during delivery - one early warning sign that the cancer had indeed spread - her first thoughts were of her baby.
"How's Lily? How's the baby?" were Joice's first words. "Her first thoughts were not 'Am I OK?" Dr. Joanne Stone, the director for Maternal Fetal Medicine at Mt. Sinai Hospital in New York who treated Joice, told ABC News.
Not long after she gave birth, doctors found that Joice's cancer had spread to her pelvis, abdomen and heart. Even with treatment, she died six weeks later on March 9.
Those close to Joice say the new mother never regretted her decision.
"She was holding the baby. Just the joy on her face was just incredible," Stone said. "She said 'This is worth it. ... I would do it all again to have this child.'"
