Blood Cancer Survivor Defies The Odds To Welcome Healthy Baby Boy

Charlie Dryden, a blood cancer survivor was devastated at the news she might never be able to conceive after undergoing treatment for cancer. Now, the 23-year-old has defied the odds by welcoming a healthy baby boy.

According to Mirror UK, Charlie and partner Matthew Booth, from Oxley, West Midlands, found out about the pregnancy a year after Charlie was given the all clear.

Charlie said: “It was like a wonderful present. I’m so used to everything going wrong, I just expected something bad to happen. After what we’ve been through he feels like a little miracle.”

Charlie’s mum Lynn Ward, who already has two other grandchildren, added: “I’m over the moon about Carter, this is the baby I never thought I’d meet so it feels extra special.”

In February 2013, Charlie visited her GP with a lump under her arm.

Initially diagnosed as an abscess, when she went to hospital to have it cut out, she was sent to the oncology ward.

She was eventually diagnosed with an aggressive form of blood cancer, non-Hodgkins Lymphoma, on June 10, 2013.

Charlie said: “Getting the diagnosis was a massive relief because it meant we knew what was wrong and what could be done to help me. All I asked was ‘am I going to die?’ They couldn’t tell me but they did say they could harvest my eggs because I was unlikely to be able to have children in the future.”

Although desperate for a family one day, the procedure would have delayed heartbroken Charlie’s treatment by up to eight weeks – which could have proved fatal.

“I had always wanted children, but at that time I could only focus on saving my own life,” she said.

After surgery and four months of chemotherapy, Charlie’s wounds became so infected that her family were convinced she would die.

Thankfully she pulled through, and was given the all clear just before her last chemo session on September 11, 2013.

Charlie welcomed her miracle baby after a gruelling two day labour at 8lb 4oz on June 3 via caesarean section.