‘Miracle’ IVF baby diagnosed with rare cancer just months after birth

A baby who took five years to conceive has been given the all-clear from rare cancer she was diagnosed with when she was a few months old.

Maddison, now aged six months, was born after parents Rob, 31, and Natasha Holt, 30, turned to IVF when they could not conceive naturally.

Their joy was shattered shortly after Maddison’s birth on August 5 last year when doctors told them she had a tumour after her grandmother noticed a lump on her stomach.

A bowel check-up before Christmas turned out to be a myofibroblastic tumour, a rare childhood cancer which then refused to shrink after a month of chemotherapy.

Maddison was forced to undergo a six-hour operation to remove 100% of the tumour at Leeds General Infirmary on January 8 and is now cancer-free.

Mr Holt, from Leeds, said: ‘Maddison was an unbelievable miracle.

He added: ‘When they said cancer, I refused to believe it. It couldn’t be true. Not after everything we’d been through.

‘We’d been going through a five-year nightmare and just when we thought we’d escaped it, our world was rocked again.

‘I kept thinking to myself: “Is my little girl going to die?”

‘I felt broken, raw and lost. Whenever I left the hospital I would cry for hours on end.’

Just weeks after Maddison started chemotherapy she was rushed back into the hospital with a bad case of bronchitis.

She was placed into isolation, put on oxygen and ended up having three blood transfusions.

The family was told Maddison could not go home until she was able to breathe for 24 hours on her own – and on Christmas Eve she managed it.

She spent her first Christmas and New Year’s at home with her family before going back to the consultants on January 3.

Unfortunately, the family were told that the chemotherapy had not shrunk the tumour and Maddison required surgery.

Mr Holt said: ‘She was so brave and so was Natasha. I couldn’t be prouder of my two girls – I was completely useless but they were both amazing.’

The weeks after Maddison’s birth were a rollercoaster of emotions for the couple, who have been together for nine years, as they wed the month after she was born.

Mr Holt, who works as a locksmith, added: ‘It was amazing to have Maddison there – though no one cared about us, she stole the show in her little gorgeous white dress.’

He’s now sharing his family’s story to raise awareness about childhood cancers and to encourage people to open up and talk about what they’re going through.

Mrs Holt, who also works as a locksmith, saod: ‘Looking at her now you wouldn’t even know what she had been through.

‘She’s really becoming her own person.

‘She’s always giggling, is just so chilled and always chuntering away. She’s amazing.’