And though she be but little, she is fierce

William Shakespeare, A Midsummer Night’s Dream

We had no idea anything was wrong with Mina until the moment she was born on December 10, 2014. I had an emergency c-section because her fluid was dangerously low, she was breech, and my blood pressure was too high for the two of us to endure a natural labor. Mina was born with stage 4 adrenal cancer, though at the time the doctors believed she simply had a liver tumor. She was born at our local hospital and transferred to UCSF, a facility I cannot say enough nice things about. Every single person I came into contact with in that place was a joy to work with and went above and beyond caring for my daughter and family.

Adrenal cancer cannot pass the placental barrier, but my body fought hard to sustain Mina through the last weeks of her life. Mina’s cancer had spread from her adrenals to her liver and the lymph nodes surrounding her stomach. As it stood, her cancer, while not spreading to me, made me incredibly sick. I was later diagnosed with mirror syndrome, a rare but life-threatening condition that has had lasting effects on my health.

During the time Mina was alive, her doctors did what they could for her. Ultrasounds to determine her condition (which wasn’t fully understood until the autopsy), medications to keep her sedated and pain-free, and fluids to keep her hydrated and to try to keep her organs viable. Her liver was so large that it caused the failure of her other abdominal organs – a condition known as compartment syndrome. Her lungs were also compressed, so she was kept on a ventilator to facilitate her breathing. We were given the option to have exploratory surgeries performed on her abdomen to determine the cause of her enlarged liver, but we were warned that she would likely die during the operation, due to her body’s inability to clot her blood. Ultimately we decided to let her pass away naturally, without pain and in our arms. Once we made the decision to let her go (in hindsight this was our only option as adrenal cancer in infants is not really treatable – at least not in stage 4), they simply gave her pain medication so she could die peacefully in our arms. Our children and families (my husband’s extended family spent the day in the hospital and my mother flew all the way from Georgia at the drop of a hat) held her and said their goodbyes, and my brother-in-law took the only pictures we have of Mina. Her doctors removed her breathing tube and as much medical apparatus as they could, and we held her. She died in our arms on December 13, 2014 at approximately 1:00 am.

We were very lucky to meet her and have the time we did. As soon as they removed her from my abdomen, she stopped breathing. The head of pediatrics happened to be the physician on call that day, and he was able to revive her. Had she been born any sooner, she would’ve been too little to fight as long as she did. Any later and the cancer would have overtaken her in utero. As awful as all of this has been, I’m so grateful to have met her and spent the time I was given with her.

Mina is forever a part of our family. We feel her absence every single day, and we grieve the life she should have had.