A Mother's love: One woman's battle with cancer, pregnancy

By Spc. Emily Knitter, 1HBCT Public AffairsMarch 2, 2012

A Mother's love
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A Mother's Love
2 / 3 Show Caption + Hide Caption – (Photo Credit: U.S. Army) VIEW ORIGINAL
A Mother's Love
3 / 3 Show Caption + Hide Caption – Jennifer Fields holds her daughter, Isabella, as they visit with a friend's horse. Fields was diagnosed with cancer six weeks after she became pregnant, and appreciates every moment with her daughter even more after surviving her battle. Jennifer had... (Photo Credit: U.S. Army) VIEW ORIGINAL

FORT STEWART, Ga. - Specialist Seabrook Fields and his wife, Jennifer, had been trying for years to have a baby.

"Ever since we got married we wanted a kid," said Seabrook. "We thought something was wrong with one of us."

After six years, both were finally tested and prior to Spc. Field's deployment to Iraq with 1st Heavy Brigade Combat Team, Third Infantry Division, they discovered Jennifer needed minor surgery to help with the issue. For the Fields', the surgery went smoothly and they began planning for a child.

A few months after the surgery, though, the couple's plan was almost put on hold.

"I realized one side of my face was a little larger than the other," Jennifer explained. "I went to the doctor and they referred me to the [Ear, Neck and Throat Specialist]. I'd had a sore throat at one time and I thought maybe my lymph nodes just hadn't gone back down."

Then the doctor mentioned the one word no one ever wants to hear: cancer.

"I wasn't all that concerned until the word cancer came up as a possibility," she said.

Overseas, Spc. Seabrook took the news even harder.

"I was freaking out because I was stuck over there and she could have cancer," Spc. Field's said.

The ENTs ran tests, but everything came back fine.

"By that time it was October," said Jennifer. "We had two more months and then we were going to start fertility shots when he came home. The ENT Specialist kept telling me that I was too young and it was probably not cancerous. He said they could remove them for cosmetic purposes, but that was about it."

Jennifer had the surgery two days before Thanksgiving. "They didn't think I had anything to worry about," she said. "I went in two weeks later for a check-up and the doctor told me it wasn't cancer. The ENT Specialist said they were still going to send it off to another lab, because they really didn't know what caused them to be so big."

That confirmation was all they needed. "Hearing that it wasn't cancer was when I relaxed," Jennifer said. "It was the first week of December at that time. Specialist Seabrook was about to come home, and I had already made the appointment to start the fertility shots."

On January 1, they found out Jennifer was expecting. Six years of trying and wishing, and the Fields' were finally going to be parents. "I was ecstatic," Spc. Fields said. "And very scared."

"It was hard to believe," said Jennifer. "I don't think it really hit me until I saw the ultrasound for the first time when I was six-weeks pregnant. I saw her little heart fluttering, and there she was."

For the next two days the couple was on an emotional high, but with one phone call, everything came crashing down.

"The doctor's office called and said they needed me to come in," Jennifer explained. "They had already said it wasn't cancer, so I don't have anything else to be worried about."

For Spc. Fields, Jan. 24 will always be scarred in his memory.

"When the doctor broke the news it was the worst day of my life," said Jennifer.

There is no way to prepare for something like that.

"I almost passed out," Spc. Seabrook said. "My heart stopped. The worst thing you could ever be told is that your loved one has cancer."

Jennifer remembers the conversation like it was a horrible nightmare. "I remember when he told me, he said, 'I'm sorry, it's Non-Hodgkin's Lymphoma.' I had no idea what that was, so I was like, 'Okay, what do I have to do?'

He said, "It's cancerous.'

I said, 'Whoa, you told me it wasn't cancer.'

His response to that was, "I'm sorry, we were wrong.'

I looked at him and said, 'I'm six weeks pregnant, what am I supposed to do?'

He looked me dead in the eye and said, 'You may have to think about terminating the pregnancy.'"

Specialist Fields remembers being angry. "Why didn't they catch it sooner?" was his first question. "There was an opportunity months ago to catch it."

They came to find out that the doctor had sent the test off, then someone lost the results and wrote it off. It was not necessarily the doctor that messed up in the beginning, Spc. Fields explained. "There could have been a collage of things that happened, and I did not want to sit and point fingers, but something was messed up and someone didn't do the right thing."

But no matter the reason, the facts were just that. Cold, hard, undeniable.

"I bawled all the way home," Jennifer said. "I went into my room and screamed and cried. I didn't want to die, but if it came between my baby and me, it was going to be my baby.

For Spc. Fields, the right path was unclear. "I am selfish," he said. "I found the woman I love and want to be with the rest of my life. That is a baby, we could have another. Was that the right answer? Probably not. Is it ethical? No. But I was being selfish."

But the choice was ultimately up to Jennifer.He looked me dead in the eye and said, 'you may have to think about terminating the pregnancy.'"

So they made their first appointment with an Oncologist, and by the time it arrived [the cancer] had gotten a lot bigger.

"Non-Hodgkin's Lymphoma is usually supposed to be in a 60-to-70 year old, not a 29 year old," Jennifer said.

Jennifer was not just abnormally young to have this type of cancer; she was the youngest documented case in the United States.

During the appointment, a bone marrow biopsy was performed. A positive biopsy would have indicated the cancer had reached its final, terminal stage. To everyone's relief the biopsy came back negative, but beyond that, they could only guess at the severity.

"It was very depressing to think about," said Seabrook of the growing tumors. "So I just tried to focus on the good."

For Jennifer, it was hard to focus on the good because when she looked in the mirror and her belly grew, her face did as well.

"During my pregnancy my lymph nodes just kept getting bigger and bigger," she said. "It was a dark time for me emotionally. You feel fat as it is when you're pregnant, but to actually look in the mirror and see this huge side of your face takes a toll on you."

Finally, the doctors decided it was safe to induce labor. Time was growing short to beat the cancer, and after 74 hours of labor, the couple heard the first cry of their baby girl, Isabella.

Soon after, Jennifer had a CT scan and the doctor came back into the room with a ray of hope.

"He told me I was only a stage two," she said. "I was very happy, because stage three is incurable. I could handle stage two!"

When Isabella was only three weeks old, Jennifer had her first chemotherapy session.

"Once I started chemo, a lot of times I would have to lay there on the couch with [Isabella] in my arms," Jennifer said. "Every little ounce of energy I had left went into her, especially the day after treatments."

Specialist Seabrook is enrolled in college and serving active duty Army, so sometimes there was no one at the house to help Jennifer.

"You suck it up and do it," she said. "I can't leave my daughter in a dirty diaper all day or let her go hungry because I don't feel good. I think honestly that is what got me through all those sick days; I looked into her face and it was all worthwhile."

Although Isabella was her driving force, Jennifer was scared.

"I think my biggest fear was that I didn't know if I was going to make it," she said.

After four chemo treatments, the Fields' got some great news.

"We were supposed to do between six to eight treatments of chemo," Jennifer said. "But the doctors checked the CT scan and it was clear. However, I knew my battle wasn't over."

Five days a week for almost two months, Jennifer underwent radiation treatment to ensure the cancer would not come back. The treatments were even harder on her body than chemotherapy, and by the final weeks Jennifer had lost her ability to speak and swallow food.

Finally, over a year after she had been diagnosed, Jennifer walked into the doctor's office for her last treatment.

"We were done," Jennifer said. "I think at that point I let myself rejoice a little bit more, because I really was done. I had been cooked long enough."

As Jennifer enjoys her life no longer as a patient, but as a survivor, the effects of her battle still linger.

"Cancer affects not just you, but your Family," she continues. "It's almost as if cancer doesn't want to let me go. But I don't want to complain, because I have a beautiful baby girl."

For Spc. Seabrook, the end of their fight means taking time to rebuild their lives.

"Being 'normal' is weird," he said. "Not rushing to all these appointments all the time, we now have time to actually do things as a Family."

Having their Family together is a dream a long time coming, and hard earned.

"Going through the struggles that I did makes me even more thankful that I am alive and that I am going to be here for my daughter," said Jennifer. "My biggest fear was my daughter growing up without a mom and on her wedding day Seabrook looking at her saying, 'your mom would have been so proud of you.'"

As she looks at the smiling blue-eyed baby in her arms, she smiles with tears in her eyes.

"But you're not going to have to hear that now, mommy's here."