Tiana Bender-Santiago is doing what cancer said she couldn’t.
The 28-year-old, diagnosed with Ewing sarcoma, an aggressive form of bone cancer, at age 13, was told she’d likely never have children. An oafish fertility doctor even deemed her ovaries “dusty.”
But now, the brunette and her bellyful of baby are laughing all the way to labor and delivery.
“Take that cancer,” Bender-Santiago, from Ventura, California, captioned a clip of her discovering she and husband Nigel had conceived.
Footage of the shaking, speechless sweethearts staring at their positive pregnancy test has amassed over 809,000 video views online.
“Now entering my mom era,” she deservingly bragged of her “literal miracle.”
Bender-Santiago was one in the small number of teens to be diagnosed with cancer. In fact, just 5,660 adolescents are diagnosed annually in the U.S., making up a tiny fraction (roughly 0.3%) of the total national cancer diagnoses, per the American Cancer Society.
For cancer patients under age 19, experts warn that “treatment can affect their reproductive systems and their ability to have children in the future.” Adults, including both men and women, may face similar infertility side effects, forcing them to explore adoption or surrogacy, or to forgo parenthood all together.
Bender-Santiago, however, was more preoccupied with battling the disease than pursuing future fertility options upon learning that a tumor had developed in her pelvis and was pressing against her spine.
“Egg freezing was discussed, but I chose to start fighting the cancer right away,” she told Newsweek. “I found peace knowing that adoption was something I’d dreamed of doing anyway.”
She ultimately beat cancer in high school.
After meeting Nigel, 27, and tying the knot in 2023, the couple settled in to happy married life, never expecting the surprise they received in early March, finding out that Bender-Santiago was, in deed, expecting.
“I didn’t think it was real,” she admitted of the doubt that surged through her trembling frame while reading the Clear Blue results — a pregnancy test she took on a whim before throwing it in the garbage.
“I’d heard of chemical pregnancies and hormonal changes causing false positives, so that was my first thought,” said Bender-Santiago. “Since our fertility doctor had told me perimenopause was approaching, I figured this must be some new hormonal shift.”
“Even after multiple positive tests, I didn’t fully believe it until our first ultrasound, when we heard our baby’s heartbeat, which was so surreal.”
The merry mommy-to-be — considered “high risk owing to a hollow bone in her pelvis from cancer — routinely shares ultrasound snaps of her incoming little one online, a boy due in December, confessing she and Nigel cry tears of joy each time doctors confirm that their baby is A-OK.
“We got to see little gummy bear at 8 weeks and my OBGYN was so reassuring about all my concerns with my cancer history,” she wrote in a post. “We did lots of extra tests just to be safe and everything came back clear!”
“My doctor called the baby ‘perfectly healthy.’”
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