Baby girl survives cancer detected before birth

After suffering the loss of a child through miscarriage, Lisa and Anthony Smith were elated to know they were expecting a baby girl. That is, until “joy soon turned to terror” when doctors detected a tennis ball sized tumor on the baby’s neck at 32 weeks.

Lisa expressed how they “were terrified. I couldn’t bear to think of her having cancer as an adult, let alone ­before she was born.”

As a mom, she “just had to pray that she [Jenna] would be able to survive.”

Before the umbilical cord was even cut, a tracheotomy was performed to allow baby Jenna to breath. She underwent chemotherapy and recently celebrated Christmas with a small neck tube as the only visible sign of the fight she has won at such a young age.

Doctors expect treatment to end this month and to start working toward removing the tube next month.

Recovering from the unexpected events of the last year, Anthony is “so incredibly proud. Jenna’s the strongest one of all of us. She’s been the one carrying us.”