Mom With Cancer Makes Ultimate Sacrifice to Deliver Baby Girl
On November 2, at 23 weeks pregnant with her fourth child, Cara Combs was diagnosed with stage IV melanoma. Doctors advised the mom from St. Louis that her best shot was to have the baby immediately and begin cancer treatment — but they also noted that her baby would have a 90 percent greater chance of survival if she waited until 28 weeks to deliver. Cara made the hard choice to postpone her own treatment in order to give her baby a better chance at life, first posting news of her decision on Facebook on Nov. 13:
Six days later, Cara updated her Facebook page to outline the family’s progress: “The plan is to deliver the baby on December 7th at 28 weeks,” she wrote. “We are still unsure of which treatment I will undergo and are looking into traveling to Texas for the most advanced treatment there is.”
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The Combs family had professional photos taken by Emily Lucarz on Dec. 4, and the photographer posted this update on Facebook the very next day, after Cara went into labor and had an emergency C-section:
Baby Shaylin (“Shay”) was born on Dec. 5, and Lucarz posted this update with photos of Shay and her siblings:
Photo: Emily Lucarz Photography
Lucarz linked to a GoFundMe page for the Combs family to help Cara fight her cancer. Two days later, Lucarz posted a plea for prayers, and on the morning of Dec. 8 she updated her page with news of Cara’s death.
The family’s story has gone viral, and some commenters have not been kind. On Fox59News’s Facebook page, one man wrote, “It wasn’t a good decision to me she had other kids that are going to really miss their mother and maybe some when they grow up are going to hate her for what she did.” Other people have defended Cara’s choice, like one woman who posted, “She chose life for her child and that is the greatest sacrifice of all, illness or not. I commend her and pray that her family finds peace and at the same time, joy in this new blessing.”
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Cara’s sister-in-law, Michelle Combs Gerdin, felt the need to create a timeline of events, and in a Facebook comment on Lucarz’s page on Dec. 9, she clarified that Cara was due to travel to MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston on Dec. 10 “to start immunotherapy to fight the monster that was taking over her body… She figured it would take a few days to recover from giving birth and then start treatments shortly thereafter.” Gerdin added that Cara imagined these treatments “would give her time with Shay. Time with my brother. Time with her three other precious children.”
But Cara wound up needing a liver transplant after Shay was born, according to Gerdin’s post, and because of her cancer she was not a candidate. She never returned from the ICU. “God had other plans as Cara gained her angel wings yesterday just a few days after giving birth,” Gerdin wrote.
Baby Shay is doing well in the NICU, and the family’s GoFundMe is now accepting donations to help keep things as normal as possible for the grieving children and their father who have lost their mother and wife so suddenly. On the page, Cara’s husband, Roy, said this about his wife: “She was the strongest person I ever met and the best wife and mother. She sacrificed everything so her legacy could live on. Thank you all for your support and prayers. She was my everything and always will be.”
(Top photo: Emily Lucarz Photography)
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