Maaike receives five chemotherapy treatments during her pregnancy, the last at 37 weeks. Two weeks later she was induced and gave birth to a healthy son in the hospital. She herself is considerably weakened, partly due to the chemo: at first she cannot walk without fainting. After two days she can go home for a bit of ‘normal’ maternity time: “I was able to cocoon at home, it was also nice that there was maternity care. But at the same time there was also a lot hanging over my head: my sixth and final chemotherapy treatment was yet to come and I had no idea whether the treatment was working. As a new mother, I was terribly afraid that the results would be disappointing. Fortunately, everything worked.”
“I can now talk about it quite easily, but I wouldn’t wish what I went through on my worst enemy,” she continues. “At the same time, I know through contact with other women that I have really had a ‘walk in the park’ compared to them. In the end it is simply an inhuman process: cancer requires that you focus completely on yourself, while caring for a new child requires that you put everything about yourself aside.”
Fiorella (42) had cancer during pregnancy: ‘Bald head, big belly… The entire hospital stared after me’Also read
STER(k) Foundation
Maaike can gradually focus on her new life without additional hospital appointments. But throughout her entire journey, something has started to itch. “During those months I often searched for information, but I often did not find relevant answers to my questions about cancer during pregnancy,” she says. “The same applied to contact with fellow sufferers. I saw that there was an organization in Great Britain, and that encouraged me to set up something similar in the Netherlands: the STER(k) foundation.”
With the foundation, Maaike is committed to helping the 200 women per year in the Netherlands who are diagnosed with cancer during (or shortly after) their pregnancy. On the website she shares answers to frequently asked questions – in collaboration with experts – so that women have a place to go for basic information. She also organizes contact with fellow sufferers, family days and experience stories. “To combat the feeling of loneliness,” Maaike explains. “It’s very nice to know that you are not alone.”
‘Topsy-turvy world’
In that context, she is also working on something new: women can register in the first year after giving birth for, for example, extra maternity care, domestic help or (night) babysitting. “It is a challenge because we rely on donations and the efforts of volunteers, but I hope we can expand this further. If you are dealing with cancer and a (new) family life, that kind of extra help can be extremely valuable. The mental blow often only comes after the treatment. Such a trauma is especially bad when it comes at a time that should actually be very happy: a kind of car accident on your birthday.”
One of the women who knocked on the door of the STER(k) Foundation is Fiorella, who is in LINDA. magazine shares her story. “Fiorella says she sometimes felt like an attraction in the hospital, with her bald head and big belly. I recognize that: I sometimes saw fellow patients looking at me in shock, while in my perception they looked much sicker than I felt. Sometimes it felt like a kind of upside-down world. And that is precisely why it is nice to hear stories from women who have already experienced that process. It gives some perspective. And fortunately we can now offer more of that help than a few years ago.”
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