# My Pregnant Daughter Was Battling Cancer\u2014Then Her Gender Reveal Box Brought 40 Guests to Tears<\/p>\n
When my 29-year-old daughter, Maren, finally became pregnant, we thought her biggest worry would be choosing a nursery color. Then, at 12 weeks, she was diagnosed with Hodgkin lymphoma.<\/p>\n
Her doctors arranged chemotherapy during her second trimester. She lost her hair, grew exhausted, and tried to smile through every appointment.<\/p>\n
\u201cMom, what if I never meet my baby?\u201d she whispered one night.<\/p>\n
Her husband, Michael, seemed strong until I found a notebook titled \u201cIF MAREN CAN\u2019T COME HOME.\u201d It listed bills, insurance information, and people who could help with childcare. He admitted he was terrified of raising their baby alone.<\/p>\n
Maren overheard us. Instead of getting angry, she held his hand. \u201cI\u2019m scared too. I just don\u2019t want to be scared alone.\u201d<\/p>\n
Weeks later, she asked for a gender reveal party. Forty relatives gathered in our backyard. That morning, her oncologist had called, and both Maren and Michael returned with tearful eyes. Neither would tell me why.<\/p>\n
When Maren opened the giant white box, there were no balloons. Inside lay pink and blue socks\u2014and an ultrasound showing twins.<\/p>\n
\u201cA boy and a girl,\u201d she whispered.<\/p>\n
Then she shared the news that made everyone cry: \u201cMy cancer is in remission.\u201d<\/p>\n
Months later, I watched her cradle her daughter while Michael held their son. Their notebook now read, \u201cTHINGS WE\u2019LL DO TOGETHER.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
# My Pregnant Daughter Was Battling Cancer\u2014Then Her Gender Reveal Box Brought 40 Guests to Tears When my 29-year-old daughter, Maren, finally became pregnant, we thought her biggest worry would be choosing a nursery color. Then, at 12 weeks, she was diagnosed with Hodgkin lymphoma. Her doctors arranged chemotherapy during her second trimester. She lost …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":11133,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11132","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/storypulls.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11132","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/storypulls.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/storypulls.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/storypulls.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/storypulls.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=11132"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/storypulls.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11132\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11134,"href":"https:\/\/storypulls.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11132\/revisions\/11134"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/storypulls.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/11133"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/storypulls.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=11132"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/storypulls.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=11132"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/storypulls.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=11132"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}