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Breast Cancer

Framingham woman with breast cancer has her baby

By One Comment2 min read

By Danielle Ameden/Daily News staff

GateHouse News Service

The past:

After a four-year struggle to get pregnant, Framingham residents Rebecca and Larry Byrne found out in early January that they were finally expecting a baby, thanks to a successful in vitro fertilization procedure. In March, though, Rebecca was diagnosed with invasive ductile carcinoma, a type of breast cancer. Despite one doctor’s recommendation to abort, the couple decided to keep the baby while Rebecca, 35, underwent two surgeries and started chemotherapy for her breast cancer. She told her story at myboobandmybaby.blogspot.com.

The recent present:

Rebecca’s water broke early – at 33 weeks – and she delivered a baby girl, Emelia Giovannina, on July 30 at Brigham & Women’s Hospital in Boston. “Emmy” weighed just 3 pounds, 9 ounces at birth and spent 26 days in the neonatal intensive care unit before her parents brought her home on a recent Wednesday. Emmy, described as a happy, healthy and easy baby, has been steadily gaining weight. “She’s adorable,” Rebecca said. “She’s a little princess.” The new mom joked, “She has more hair than I do right now.”

The future:

Rebecca started receiving stronger chemotherapy drugs right after her baby was born and was set to receive her third of 12 doses. “So far I’m doing good with it,” she said, although the medication tires her out. She plans to have a single mastectomy in November or December and then undergo radiation treatment, followed by reconstructive surgery. She is focused on being Emelia’s cancer-free mother, “so I can enjoy every minute with her for the rest of our lives.”

– By Daily News staff writer Danielle Ameden

Copyright 2010 Raynham Call. Some rights reserved

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