My husband has terminal cancer – and I’m pregnant?!

Let me just preface this by saying, I get to a point in my life where I feel like nothing else crazy can happen. I make a plan, I envision how my life is going to go, and BAM life knocks me upside the head and throws me another loop. And this is a crazy one! I guess this story is the perfect example of succumbing to the ups and downs and unexpected ways of life.

I had my first child when I was 21 years old. I had only been dating my husband for a year when we conceived, and he was living halfway up the coast in Baltimore. 8 Months after Ella was born, we moved to Fayetteville, NC to open a furniture store. The following years were so full of running a business, planning a wedding, and raising Ella away from our family that I didn’t think we could handle another child. So I got on birth control, and we just lived our life. I thought about more children every once in a while, but the older Ella got, the more secure I became in accepting she was our only child. She was my little buddy, and I didn’t really think I could love another child the way I loved her. (boy was I wrong about that!)

Fast forward to when Ella was 9 years old. I had been off of birth control for almost 4 years, and had been actively working to heal my hormones through pro-metabolic eating, herbs, and generally trying to get my body in a better place. We were in the middle of selling our home in Florence, SC and were preparing to make the move back to Butler’s hometown of Moncks Corner when I noticed my cycle was late. After an entire life of my periods being wildly irregular, I had 2 cycles within 28 days of each other for the first time ever. That 3rd cycle never came. I took a pregnancy test, and BOOM. Baby number 2 was on the way. I’ll be honest, I was TERRIFIED. I had 9 years in between my kids! I was starting over completely and totally. I had no baby items, we were selling our house, we were in between businesses. I didn’t know where we were going to live, what we were going to do for work, holy shit we were in trouble. Nevertheless, we pushed forward, moved home, and started the process on prepping for baby number 2. This wasn’t the first baby where our lives were far from settled, and turns out, it wouldn’t be the last. Babies come earthside when they are ready, not when mom and dad are ready.

I had spent the last few years learning about natural home births, after getting to know women who focused on attachment parenting, home births, sovereign births, and I found it beautiful. I told myself if I had another baby (thinking I most likely never would) I would do that. I would want many more children. I would have them all at home, I would homeschool them, and spend my days raising and nurturing them. Thomas was born at home, in the same bed he was conceived in, in February 2023. I immediately wanted more babies. I wanted to experience that oxytocin high over and over again. I was hooked!!

We had JUST opened a mattress store a month before Thomas was born, we were living in a tiny 2 bedroom house, and I wanted to let my body heal before we started trying again. We were looking to the future, trying to figure out when we should start trying again. When Thomas was 8 months old (what is it about big things happening when my kids are 8 months old?) Butler was diagnosed with a terminal brain cancer, Glioblastoma. We learned his cancer is genetic, so we decided between the risks of our children inheriting the cancer later in life and the potential that I could be raising these children on my own, the responsible thing to do is not have anymore children. I knew it was the right decision, but this was one of those times where my heart and my brain did not align. My heart was shattered. I had finally come to a place in my life where I wanted all the kids, and that dream was gone.

I actively grieved the children I would never have, and worked on it in and out of therapy for so long. It was so hard, though. Everywhere I looked, I saw pregnancy announcements, birth announcements, and I was jealous of those women who got to have the babies they wanted. They didn’t have to worry about if their husband, their life partner was going to die. “How long do I have left with him?” They didn’t have to worry about the financial stress of cancer, of having the sole provider of the family not be able to provide anymore. Of course, I truly don’t know what these women were stressing about. Everyone has stressors, no matter how perfect someone’s life may look on social media. But my heart was hurting, my brain was telling me lies. As they always say though, time heals all wounds. It hurt less over time, and I honestly became consumed in keeping my family afloat. I didn’t have time to grieve anymore, I had to keep pushing forward, and so I did.

Butler was on an incredibly extensive treatment of chemotherapy. He did one whole month of daily Temozolomide, followed by 12 months of 5 days of chemo every 28 days. Throughout his treatment, his dosage would increase periodically. Temozolomide is a pill, which was a relieving and new concept to us. We always thought his chemo would consist of constant trips to the hospital and being hooked up to infusion machines. We were told before Butler started his chemo that we needed to…take certain precautions… while he was on his chemo, considering the changes the chemicals can have on his body, bodily fluids included. We also had always been told, heard, ASSUMED that chemo can mess with your sperm count, or ruin it altogether. But different cancers require different chemos, and maybe his chemo didn’t effect his sperm like others do, maybe he has super sperm? I don’t know. All I know is this man got me pregnant for the 3rd time!!

Butler completed his chemotherapy in March of 2025. It was so liberating for him! We finally felt like we could move forward with our life, and start focusing on getting back to “normal.” About halfway through March, I started to feel incredibly run down, and sick all the time. I had taken the role of the sole provider of my family after being a stay at home mom for 6 years. I started a cleaning business in July of 2024, and after many months of hard work and word of mouth, my business was finally taking off. It was hard work, and not where my heart was. My heart was being a stay at home mom, cooking, cleaning, and educating my children. It sounds wildly domesticated, but I truly believed that is what God put me on this earth to do. Obviously, things happen out of our control, and you have to do what you have to do. Butler was staying home with our children, filling my role as best as he could, but neither one of us were happy with the roles that had been bestowed upon us. I thought my exhaustion and general feeling of crappiness stemmed from me not living out my purpose. I thought I was emotionally, mentally, and physically burnt out, but how was that possible? My feeling of being ill only got worse. It got to a point where I was nauseous all the time. I didn’t want to eat anything. I couldn’t even speak half the time without gagging. What the hell?! Was my body riddled with stress? Was my body rejecting my current lifestyle? I started questioning if I had mold poisoning.

My best friend and my sister in law both casually mentioned that maybe I was pregnant. Yeah right!! I have never experienced morning sickness with any of my pregnancies, surely it wasn’t that! We had been using protection because of Butler’s chemo, we weren’t…incredibly active at the time because hello…. chemo takes it out of ya. And life, lots of life. I quit nursing Thomas 2 weeks into February when he turned 2. Prior to that, I had 4 regular cycles in 2024 but by March 2025 I hadn’t had a cycle in 5 months. There was NO WAY I was pregnant. But I was desperate for answers. So, on April 7th, just to eliminate the possibility, I decided to take a test one night right before I hopped in the shower. When I say that test came back positive immediately, it came back positive IMMEDIATELY.

I had a meltdown. How could I be pregnant?! As much as I grieved not having more children, this was not going to work now! I was working my ass off trying to pay the bills, and feed my family, and I was barely doing that. Life at home felt like it was barely hanging on with Butler doing the best he could, we have 1 car, a 2 bedroom house. Ya’ll have seen the housing market, right? OMG how are we going to make this work?? What happens if Butler develops another tumor? What happens if i’m a widow in my mid thirties with 3 kids?! My mind was racing, all the bad thoughts running through my head. Meanwhile, this is my husband…

Ya’ll, this man was so excited! He told me he had been wanting another, had been wanting to convince me to have another. Is there something wrong with your brain, sir?? (Get it?? – you gotta laugh to keep from crying my friends.) I have to believe God has a plan for everyone, us included. I have seen him work in our life, especially in the last 2 years. I have to have the faith that things will work out for our family, for my husband. We told our family pretty quickly because we were kind of freaked out. We thought if we told our family, it would relieve some of that fear, but they were just as freaked out as us. I’m sure some people think we are wildly irresponsible, crazy, whatever. We know condoms don’t always work!!

We did some research, and chemo has a very low chance of causing birth defects, especially when it’s the male taking the chemo. The reality is, this baby was meant to be. All of my babies were meant to be, and they all have their own special story. At the time of writing this, I am newly in my 2nd trimester, Butler has gotten a job in sales, something he is passionate about, and I am doing everything I can on my end. The car, the house, that will come in time. We may be a little bit uncomfortable if the baby comes before we can find/afford a bigger house, but hey, my family is comfortable with being uncomfortable. I do intend to birth this baby at home as I did with Thomas, and we plan to do an early DNA test to check for abnormalities, and this baby’s anatomy scan will also be beneficial in that kind of information. In the meantime, faith is what is getting me through. I never thought I would have more children, and here I am, pregnant with my 3rd. It truly is a beautiful miracle. A scary miracle, but a beautiful one nonetheless. I’ll keep everyone updated throughout my pregnancy, and if you have any questions about this experience, leave them in the comments below and i’ll make sure to answer them. Thanks for reading!