Pregnant with cancer: journalist Elle Halliwell gives birth to healthy baby
Elle Halliwell will now start cancer treatment. Photo: Instagram
A journalist who refused to give up her pregnancy after being diagnosed with leukaemia has given birth to a healthy baby boy.
In May, Daily Telegraph fashion editor Elle Halliwell was told he had chronic myeloid leukaemia – a particularly aggressive form of blood cancer that until recently had a one in five survival rate – but on Thursday she announced the birth of Tor Felix Biasotto.
In an article published in the Daily Telegraph, Halliwell described discovering she was sick and pregnant within 48 hours.
“I was floating in a haze of Xanax and shock when the two little blue lines appeared on the pregnancy stick, confirming I was expecting my first child,” she wrote.
“I’d love to say I jumped for joy, but my exclamation instead was of the four-letter kind — because 48 hours before this news, I had been diagnosed with leukaemia.”
Halliwell said she was shocked by the diagnosis because she had not displayed any symptoms.
Advised by her doctor to abort the pregnancy, Halliwell was told she would need to take cancer medication for five years before trying to conceive again.
But Halliwell decided to eschew medical advice and go ahead with the pregnancy.
Halliwell said it was difficult reconciling her cancer with the way she felt day-to-day.
“There are days when I forget I’m sick. I go to work, grab coffee with friends and cook dinner with my husband,” she wrote.
But post-birth, she told News Corp she will be starting cancer within days – earlier than previously thought.
“We were going to have a bit of time before [I started] but my levels have gone up a bit so they are a bit more concerned than they were,” Halliwell explained.
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