I was overjoyed when I found out I was pregnant after a miscarriage at 36

A mother told to ‘prepare for the worst’ when diagnosed with breast cancer days after finding out she was pregnant has urged all women to be vigilant with their health.

Dani Donne and her husband Mark, from Brisbane, were elated when her pregnancy test came up positive after months of trying and a devastating miscarriage. 

However, the couple’s joy was short-lived as the next day she felt a small, hard lump on her breast while getting changed.

Just seven days later, Dani, 36, was told she had breast cancer and would need to undergo treatment as soon as possible. Options were limited as her baby was her number one priority.

Despite giving birth to a healthy baby girl, Parker, in April 2023, weeks after finishing her first bout of chemotherapy, the battle was far from over.

Speaking to FEMAIL, Dani said her pregnancy was a time of heightened anxiety rather than the joyful anticipation most experience.

‘My entire pregnancy I always stressed about her, I didn’t care about me at all. I did not care about my treatments, did not care about any of it was that I was just so concerned about her,’ she said. 

Now Dani is warning all women to get their breasts checked regardless of their age and cancer history.

‘I was the first person in my family to have breast cancer so it was a complete shock,’ she said.

‘It doesn’t matter how old you are, or whether it’s in your family or not because it’s not in mine – check your breasts.’

Dani lost her first pregnancy at seven weeks in July of 2020. 

‘I was expecting it to happen. My hCG levels weren’t increasing and the doctor said to prepare myself for the worst,’ she recalled. 

The couple waited for Dani’s body to recover before trying to start a family again and they fell pregnant in September 2022. 

‘When I got the positive pregnancy test I was really excited, Mark was a little bit reserved in terms of what had just happened but I could tell deep down he was excited as well. We only had the day of being excited when I found the lump,’ she said. 

At the initial GP consultation, the doctor said the lump – a painless hard mass that was around 2cm-3cm in size – was worrying.

A biopsy revealed HER2-positive breast cancer, which is a breast cancer that tests positive for a protein called human epidermal growth factor receptor 2 (HER2).

‘I was on my own when I found out so I think I just went into complete shock. To be honest, I didn’t listen to anything the doctor had told me,’ Dani said. 

‘I rang Mark after I found out, and he was obviously asking me a lot of questions, and I had no answers for him because I hadn’t paid any attention.’

She was in the middle of her first trimester so her treatment options had to be carefully planned so as not to harm the baby.  

Mater Cancer Care Centre Senior Medical Oncologist Dr Catherine Shannon met Dani when she was seven weeks pregnant. 

‘You can’t safely give chemotherapy in pregnancy until the second trimester, so she had the surgery first as this is a safer approach early in pregnancy,’ she said.

Dr Shannon explained HER-2 targeted treatments are not used during pregnancy due to oligohydramnios where there is not enough amniotic fluid around the baby.

Dani had surgery to remove the lump when she was nine weeks along before starting two bouts of chemotherapy as soon as she hit her second trimester. 

‘I’m one of the lucky ones. You never say that when you’ve got cancer but I actually didn’t get any sickness from the chemo. I lost my hair and that was the only symptom,’ she said. 

‘I had no morning sickness with bub, there was nothing, I kind of just blazed through like a normal thing.’

The mum had four rounds left to go when doctors decided to pause treatment to give her a well-deserved break before having Parker – which was lucky because she ended up being born four weeks premature. 

She was able to deliver Parker naturally in April 2023  and both mum and bub recovered without a hitch. 

However, she was immediately thrust back into tests and treatments for the breast cancer now that it posed no risk to Parker just two days after she was born.

‘I was so overwhelmed with everything and trying to have some sort of routine for myself, bub and Mark but at the same time, I could understand why my oncologist was saying we need all these tests done. We wanted to make sure while I was pregnant the cancer didn’t travel anywhere else,’ she said. 

‘It was hard to enjoy the first couple of weeks when you’ve got all that going on but at the same time, every second I had with Parker, I was happy.’

Dani endured her final four rounds of chemo, a second surgery to remove all the margins and potentially affected lymph nodes then four weeks of daily radiation.

All her tests came back clear and she wrapped up treatment in September of last year. 

Dani is taking hormone blockers and going for regular scans to make sure the cancer does not return but is otherwise living blissfully with Mark and now-10-month-old Parker. 

‘She’s just getting into absolutely everything, she’s such a happy little baby,’ she said. 

The mum said even though the cancer made her pregnancy extremely stressful and robbed her of the precious first few weeks as a new mum, she considers herself lucky.

‘I stayed positive the entire time. I said to Mark before I started chemo, ‘I’m not going to get sick. Everything’s gonna be fine,’ she said.

‘The Mater Mothers were bloody amazing. If I was worried or concerned about anything, they’d squash me in for a quick ultrasound to check that bub was fine. It made the world a difference to know she was okay.’