Mom, Baby Battle Cancer Together

June 15, 2005 — -- When Michelle Kingsfield was diagnosed with Non-Hodgkin's Lymphoma, she was determined to stay alive not only for herself, but for the baby she was carrying.

Faced with an incredibly difficult decision, Kingsfield decided to undergo chemotherapy even though she was 14 weeks pregnant with her second child.

"They told me that the studies had shown, and there were only 175 other women in the country who had went through my kind of chemotherapy, that he should be fine," Kingsfield said.

According to doctors, a baby in utero experiences the same side effects of chemotherapy, such as extreme fatigue, because it crosses the placenta. Knowing this, Kingsfield was concerned for her baby's health. But she had to be hopeful.

"I had to have faith in that," Kingsfield said. "But always in the back of my mind I thought, you never know until they are born and checked out."

Pregnancy can be difficult enough, but when you add chemotherapy to the mix, the results can be overwhelming.

"It's difficult to describe," Kingsfield said. "Anyone who goes through chemotherapy, it's very difficult to describe. It's not just, 'I'm so tired haven't had any sleep,' it's 'I can hardly get out of bed to go the bathroom. It's a struggle to lift my arm to think about going to the bathroom.' You add pregnancy onto that, it was an incredible exhaustion I never felt before."

The result will provide hope for any woman in a similar situation. Now 7 weeks old, Robert is healthy and gaining weight steadily.

"He's a little picture of health, chubby," Kingsfield said.