Cancer Survivor’s Wife Describes ‘Incredible Moment of Life’ As She Embraces Motherhood

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A couple in Indiana couldn’t wait to start their precious journey of parenthood after getting married. However, their life was thrown upside down when the husband was diagnosed with cancer. Just when they were at their wits’ end, they met a woman who turned their life around.

Amanda McWhirter from New Albany was born with a congenital heart defect, but that didn’t deter her spirit from wanting to become a mother. When she met Evan, the love of her life at the age of 26, she knew he was the right man for her. They soon got engaged, and five months later, they were all excited to start a new chapter of togetherness.

However, five weeks after their wedding, they “received news that would rock our whole word,” Amanda wrote to Love What Matters, as her husband, Evan, was diagnosed with leukemia.

This heartbreaking news really weighed down on newlywed Amanda as she watched “Evan go through 4 rounds of painful chemotherapy, poked, prodded and basically taken to the point of death.”

After spending months in the hospital together, life for the couple suddenly took an unexpected turn when they received happy news that Evan had been matched with a bone marrow donor.

On Valentine’s Day of 2014, this remarkable news gave a “whole new meaning for our family,” Amanda said. Evan was then on the miraculous road to recovery and “completely thriving in a new job and in life.”

After all the struggle and hard days the couple had been through, it was time for them to start a family. However, things were not as easy as it seemed on the surface. The chemotherapy that Evan had been through could mean it would cause them infertility; thus, the couple was advised to use a sperm bank. Amanda and Evan embarked on the journey of fertility treatments but received no positive result.

“After months of invasive procedures that also involved a lot of pills and shots,  I was completely exhausted emotionally and physically,” wrote Amanda.

Finally, leaving no stone unturned, the couple joined an agency for adoption.

After waiting anxiously for a year for a call, Amanda felt, “completely defeated and hopeless.” That night, helpless Amanda broke down in front of Evan.

But little did she know that a miracle was waiting, and her life was all set to change the next day.

“The very next evening, Evan got a call from a friend who was a pastor at a local church,” Amanda recalled.

She added, “He knew of a young woman who was 38 weeks pregnant and looking to choose adoption for her baby.”

Amanda was filled with mixed emotions. She was both overjoyed and worried at the same time, as she did not know the whereabouts of the woman. However, once they met up, all worries that bothered Amanda just disappeared. Within about 30 minutes, they bonded together, and the woman even told Amanda she could be with her during the delivery.

The “happy day” soon arrived, and Amanda was “shaking with excitement” though she felt sad for the woman who was going to give away her son.

“I held her hand and prayed with her before they began the C-section, and the moment I heard that cry, I lost it!” Amanda recalled.

To finally have a child to call her own made the new mom Amanda feel that what she and Evan had gone through was “completely and 100 percent worth it.”

“Holding him close to us made it all feel so real now,” Amanda shared. “We were now a family of three!”

After experiencing so many ups and downs, Amanda is completely at ease with her current life of being a wife to a man who survived cancer and “a mom to a little boy who may not carry my blood, but he carries my whole heart.”

“Love has saved us. Love has made us. Love is what matters,” she explained.

It was definitely not easy for both Amanda and Evan to go through all the heartbreaking moments in the journey of starting a family together, but fortunately, they were finally able to see the light at the end of the tunnel.