When two young people who are deeply in love get married, they hope that they can spend decades together. Sadly, this doesn’t always happen. But this wife was able to continue her husband’s memory.

Sarah and Joel lived in Norman, Oklahoma. They had married in their twenties.

Like many young couples, they wanted to have children. They were struggling to conceive. However, they figured that they had many years before they had to worry.

But forces beyond their control changed this.

When Joel was 32 and Sarah was 28, they would get the news that would derail their lives forever.

Joel started to get blood in his urine. He had assumed that he was passing a kidney stone. But he went to the doctor anyway just to be safe. The doctor took some tests and came back with terrible news.

Joel had kidney cancer. He couldn’t believe it. He’d always been a healthy person. Just before the diagnosis, he’d even completed an entire half marathon.

From then on, Joel would undergo a range of treatments that attempted to give him his life back.

After one year of chemo and other treatments, Joel’s health improved. The cancer was in remission. The couple were over the moon.

They decided that they had to have children right away. Things were looking good for Joel, and they didn’t want to miss their chance at children due to future complications.

The decision to start a family should be joyous, but for Joel and Sarah, it was bittersweet.

Yes, Joel’s health was improving, but who knew what would happen next? Nevertheless, Sarah said that she wanted Joel’s babies, even if the worst should happen.

So, realizing that they had to get pregnant as soon as possible, the couple looked into IVF.

Luckily, the couple had planned ahead here. The doctors told Joel that chemo can make a man sterile, so they froze Joel’s sperm before the treatment began.

The couple decided to start their IVF journey.

Amazingly, Sarah got pregnant. She learned that she was bringing twins into the world.

But even with pregnancy, the couple experienced difficulty. One of the twins would never see the world. Instead, she was lost at 12 weeks.

The second fetus remained healthy, and the couple prayed that their child would get through the entire pregnancy with no complications.

But just before Sarah was due to give birth, the couple received more bad news.

The doctors had checked Joel’s lungs and discovered that there was a spot on it. The doctors couldn’t say that it was cancer, but the couple was expecting the worst.

Sarah went into labor, and the couple gave birth to a baby boy, Milo. It was the happiest day of Sarah and Joel’s lives, but there was still the foreboding dread of Joel’s new health worry underneath it all.

And two days after Milo was born, Joel learned that his cancer was now in his lungs.

Joel immediately went back into chemo. “It was hard. Doubly hard. But we pressed on, because now the stakes were even higher.” – Sarah.

The doctors recommended that they remove part of Joel’s lung. The operation was successful, but shortly after, Joel kept on getting strokes.

At just 35 years of age, Joel passed away.

Sarah was understandably heartbroken. She loved Joel with all her heart and couldn’t believe that she would have to spend so many years without him. But what made this matter worse was the fact that she had an incredibly hard decision to make.

She had another embryo that she could use to try to get pregnant again. But could she go through with it without Joel?

Before he had died, Joel told Sarah that she should go through with it even if he passed away.

So Sarah made the decision to try for another child with Joel, even though he was no longer in the world. 18 months after, she gave birth to a daughter, Ellis.

Sarah has been through so much. Hopefully, she will never have to go through anything so difficult again.

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Source: Love What Matters