I Have Lost Two Babies And Almost My Husband… Now I’m Fighting To Stay Alive Because Of What Happened – Touching Story

Shani imagined becoming a mum would deliver the most joyful years of her life.

But just as her firstborn arrived, the Sydney mum’s world would begin crashing down in ways she never could have imagined in her worst nightmares – and would continue to do so until this very day.

Shani’s daughter, Layla, was only three weeks old when her husband, Brett, was diagnosed with appendiceal cancer in January,

“He just woke up one night with excruciating pain in his right side and we thought he just needed his appendix removed,” the 33-year-old tells Kidspot.

Horrifically, doctors found a tumour outside the ruptured appendix, which required six months of chemotherapy to treat.

“I gave birth to him, knowing he wouldn’t be alive”
With Brett, 38, on the path to remission, the couple were optimistic that a bright light would shine into their lives when they discovered they were pregnant with their second child two years later.

“It didn’t,” Shani cries. “It just got worse from there.”


At 36 weeks, Shani went into the hospital as a result of reduced movements, and devastatingly… doctors found no heartbeat.

I could still feel him moving around, but I hadn’t felt strong kicks,” the devoted mother says of her angel baby, Luka, who was born in August 2019.

“I gave birth to him, knowing he wouldn’t be alive.”

The likely cause of the stillbirth was an infection of which Shani had no symptoms.

“Lightning struck twice when I lost another baby”
Just a year later, Shani would suffer yet another tragedy with her third pregnancy.

“I went into hospital for reduced movements, but I never thought lightning would strike twice – and for completely different reasons.”

This time, her baby boy, Ashton, who was born at 27 weeks, would gain his wings after just one day. The premature baby just wasn’t strong enough to survive after suffering foetal growth restrictions.

“Just like Luka, we didn’t get to hold him until he had passed away,” Shani remembers emotionally of the traumatic emergency C-section birth on December 31, 2020, where she suffered a severe haemorrhage.

“Coming home without both of them is a pain you can’t describe. Layla would ask, ‘Mummy, where’s my baby?’ and I just burst into tears. I felt guilty that my body had failed me twice… the only comfort was knowing my boys were together.”

“I was so relieved and happy until another tragedy struck”
Shani and Brett never gave up on having the family they’d always dreamed of.

On January 25 last year, their ultimate blessing came with the arrival of their baby boy, Logan.

This time, Shani left no stone unturned in trying to help her baby come into the world safely. With scans done every two weeks, Logan was born unexpectedly at 36 weeks, after he also showed signs of reduced movements.

“I told myself, ‘We’ve got our little family now, this is it for us’. Layla was also about to start big school and we thought this would be the year that so many celebrations would happen.”

I didn’t think I would survive”
Devastatingly, Shani’s bubble of baby bliss would be shattered once again.

When Logan was eight months old, Shani felt a sharp pain in her abdomen, thinking she may be suffering from a kidney stone.

Shani went to the emergency department of her local public hospital, where she was sent home hours later and told to “come back in three weeks” once she had sought an ultrasound through her GP.

“They only took my blood,” she says, still shocked. “They didn’t do any scans or other tests.”

If she had followed that advice, Shani would not be alive today.

Knowing something was seriously wrong, Shani went the very next day to the same hospital where Brett was treated.

Her instincts were correct. An ultrasound showed a mass in her pelvis had ruptured and she was bleeding internally.

“I got there and the pain was so bad I didn’t think I would survive the night, and they said that was their concern, too.”

“My life’s going downhill”
The following day, the mother-of-two would have the very same surgery her husband had six years earlier, this time removing a one-kilogram cancerous mass – which was completely non-existent at the time of Shani’s Caesarean eight months prior – from her pelvis.

Sadly, that was only the tip of the iceberg…

In mid-October, Shani was diagnosed with lymphoma, which had not only spread throughout her pelvis, but also to her breast (which had a 13-cm mass treated with chemotherapy), kidneys, adrenal glands, and ovaries (one of which has since been removed).

“I thought, ‘That’s my life. It’s always going downhill’,” she says of her frightening diagnosis.

“I asked myself, ‘What have I done in my life to have all this happen to me?’”

“I don’t want the kids to miss out on anything with me”
The brave mum is currently four rounds into her intense chemotherapy treatment, with many more scheduled in the coming months.

While doctors have reassured Shani that her type of lymphoma can be treated, she lives with the constant fear of the high risk that the cancer will spread to the spinal fluid and brain.

“I was told there’s a 68 percent chance of survival as long as it doesn’t keep growing back.”

Amidst her own struggle, Shani’s first thoughts are still always with her children, six-year-old, Layla, and 11-month-old, Logan.

The first thing Layla said when I came home from hospital was, ‘Are you going to die?’” she tearfully remembers.

“That just hit me in the gut. I just try to pull it together because I know she will lie awake at night worrying about me. I still had a proper birthday party for her [in December] even though I was so sick from the chemo because I want her to have memories of just being a kid. I don’t want her to think, ‘Oh, that was when Mummy was sick’.”

For Shani, the privilege of being a mum to her beautiful children is what keeps her going each and every day.

“A lot of my moments with the kids are now, ‘What if this is the last time I’ll be able to do this?” she cries, breaking down

“I don’t want them to miss out on anything with me. There’s no limit to how hard I’m going to fight because there’s no way that I’m leaving my kids. I finally have my little family and that’s how I want it to stay.”