UK woman Alannah Roberts, at 30-years-old, has amazingly beaten cancer three times.
The first time she was diagnosed, she was just 15. The second time, she was aged 17.
Before she began her treatment for lymphoma, her sister suggested that she think about freezing her eggs to safeguard her future.
Speaking to Ben Shepherd and Kate Garraway on Good Morning Britain earlier, her seven-month-old daughter Faith was described as a “miracle”.
Alannah, who also appeared on the show with her husband Andy, explained that it’s thanks to her sister that little Faith was here in the first place.
She described how, at the age of 17, she hadn’t thought about babies: “I was poorly at the time and didn’t think much about anything. It wasn’t on my radar about having children.
“I was so ill my parents were concentrating on making me better, so it wasn’t on their radar. But my sister was in her early 20s, she wondered if it would affect me being able to reproduce.”
And thank goodness she did.
Although she beat the disease aged 17, Alannah and her now-husband Andy were devastated to find that she had a lump in her 20s after a holiday.
Andy said: “We’d come back off holiday and found a lump in her neck, and she instantly knew what it was. I was sat there not really taking it in.
“I was thinking it will be OK, but then the reality set in. It was just unbelievable shock.”
After finding the lump in her neck, tests showed the illness had spread to other parts of her body.
Her only hope was to have full-body radiation – killing any chance of conceiving naturally.
With a stem cell donation from her brother Daniel, Alannah went into remission in January 2011 – miraculously beating cancer for a third time.
Alannah and Andy decided to start trying for a baby, and had Alannah’s seven eggs taken out of the freezer.
No other baby has ever been born from an egg that spent so long in the freezer.
Kate Garraway explained: “Faith is the world’s oldest frozen egg baby. She was born in September – more than 13 years after her mum’s eggs had been frozen.
“It’s the first time an egg has been successfully used in IVF anywhere in the world after being frozen for so long.”
Alannah said: “It’s a miracle we didn’t lose any after thawing. There are so many ways of losing eggs – they can die after a day. We had five eggs survive, then three weren’t of good quality. The final two were good, not excellent, so we had both implanted.”
WATCH: The family’s interview below
