By Sarah Jacoby, Lauren Dunn and Kate Snow -
TODAY
In May 2020, Shelly Battista received what she called a "scary" diagnosis of breast cancer, which led to a double mastectomy and the removal of her ovaries.
But two years later, she was declared free of the disease and gave birth to twins thanks to advances in fertility medicine.
Before the diagnosis, Battista had returned to work in February after giving birth to her daughter Emelia.
While he was expressing milk for his daughter in the office, he noticed a lump in her breast.
Initially, he thought it was a clogged milk duct, but he was a little more concerned when it didn't go away.
With no family history of breast cancer and no risk factors at the time, Battista's medical evaluation was postponed amid the COVID-19 pandemic.
It wasn't until May that she was diagnosed with triple-negative breast cancer, which tends to grow fast and doesn't respond to treatments commonly used for other types of breast cancer, according to the American Cancer Society.
Battista, who was 34 at the time, also learned that she had genetic risk factors that increased her chances of getting ovarian cancer.
Mercedes' Aggressive Cancer Reveals Importance of Mammography Guideline Change
March 9, 202301:36
With a 6-month-old baby at home and hopes of having more to come, Battista and her husband, Robert, felt like "we've just started our life together, and we got this shocking news," she told Kate Snow of the NBC in a segment on the March 20 TODAY show.
Knowing that the Chicago couple dreamed of a large family, Dr. Kara Goldman, a reproductive endocrinologist and medical director of fertility preservation at Northwestern Fertility and Reproductive Medicine, advised them to start fertility treatments before chemotherapy.
[The dangerous super-drug-resistant fungus spreading through US hospitals]
The type of "chemotherapy used on young patients with triple-negative breast cancer is very toxic to the ovaries," Goldman explained to TODAY.
“We started her fertility preservation journey two days later.
He started on the medication, and two weeks later, he had eight frozen embryos,” Goldman explained.
Shelly Battista underwent 12 chemotherapy sessions and a double mastectomy.
And, given her risk factors for other cancers, she ultimately had her ovaries and fallopian tubes removed as well.
A study reveals that 39 minutes of sleep can change the health of your child
March 18, 202300:57
A year after treatment, the Battistas were ready for their next trip.
Without ovaries and fallopian tubes, Shelly Battista's pregnancy would be a little different from before.
But her uterus was intact and she was healthy enough to carry on with the pregnancy.
“The ovaries and the uterus work very independently,” Goldman explains.
“In Shelly's case, because she didn't have ovaries to produce hormones, we were able to provide her with the hormones she needed for the pregnancy,” she said.
[Study Indicates Effects of Stress May Affect Cognitive Functions]
Although the first two embryo transfers were unsuccessful, the third one worked.
Goldman "called me personally (with the news)," recalls Shelly Battista.
“We were both ecstatic, crying and screaming,” she said.
For Robert Battista, "it was the icing on the cake," he said.
"It was incredible.
We were going to have another child, Shelly was healthy, it was all behind us at that point."
But the surprise was even greater when, in the first ultrasound, they found out that the Battistas were not going to have one, but two babies.
They had only implanted one embryo, but it split into identical twins in the womb, something that only has a 1% chance of happening, Goldman explains.
The twins, Nina and Margot, were born on December 9, 2022, the date on which it was also two years since the day Shelly Battista was declared cancer-free.
[Florida seeks to ban discussion of menstruation in elementary school]
After undergoing treatment for breast cancer, Shelly Battista gave birth to twin girls in December 2022. Courtesy of Shelly and Robert Battista
“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," said Robert Battista.
“It will be the most important day of the year in our family.”
Today, the Battista home is filled with “a lot of laughing, a lot of crying and a lot of laundry,” Shelly Battista said.
“It's chaotic, but it's perfect,” she added.
