I Risked My Life To Have My Little Girl

When Lisa Connell, 36, was diagnosed with a brain tumour, she wrote a bucket list. But she never dreamed she would tick off her most wished-for item: becoming a mom...

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There was a flutter in my belly, my body was now rounder, fuller and my face had a new radiance. The baby I had always longed for was growing inside me. Yet I was completely and utterly terrified, because the last time I was pregnant, it nearly killed me. And since then, doctors had told me I would never become a mom. About 10 years ago, I was three months pregnant when I started to feel dizzy. My vision was blurred, my speech slurred, and I struggled to stand up straight. When I popped out to the shops near my home I saw passers-by frowning and tutting as I staggered about. They must have just assumed that I was drunk.

After visiting my GP, I was sent for an MRI scan. With all the stress, I miscarried while waiting for the test results. Then I got the news that changed my life.

‘You have a brain tumour,’ the doctor told me. She explained it was noncancerous, but could still cause disability, paralysis – or death. I could have years left, or months. There was no way to be sure. Operating to remove it would be too dangerous. They could only try to control the tumour with radiotherapy.

It seemed so unreal

This thing could have been there since childhood, but the symptoms had surfaced because of the pregnancy. My levels of progesterone had rocketed, which is normal in pregnancy, but research suggests it can cause meningioma tumours like mine to grow quickly. If I hadn’t miscarried, my baby and I would both have died. In just a few short weeks, I had gone from happy expectant mom to someone facing death. It was all just too much to take in.