Sutton Coldfield: Miracle baby born after cancer treatment.

Sep 28 2010 by Diane Parkes, Birmingham Mail

FAITH Cullen never thought she would hold her own baby in her arms.

After a gruelling battle with a rare and aggressive tumour, the odds of her ever conceiving were so high, it seemed an impossible dream.

But now she and partner Peter can look in wonder at their pride and joy – the child who defied medical science, Fionn.

At ten months old, he is a smiling and happy baby who is clearly adored by his parents.

Today, Faith reveals her story for the first time, to highlight the support she received through her wretched cancer ordeal by the Sutton Coldfield Cancer Support Centre, which helped her cope at her darkest moments.

“We feel so lucky. We are unbelievably blessed,” she said.

She has overcome the disease and seen her life transformed in a way which she never thought possible.

But ten years ago, when Faith’s problems began, and well before she knew her husband-to-be Kingsley, she had no idea of how close she would come to losing her life to cancer.

“I had been feeling unwell for three or four years,” said Faith, now 36. “It started off with what felt like indigestion but it got worse and worse.”

Faith saw doctors and specialists but none could diagnose the problem.

“I had tests, endoscopies, colonoscopies but it was getting progressively worse. They thought it was irritable bowel syndrome and I was on painkillers,” she said.

“It got so bad that I was constantly having to go into accident and emergency departments in wherever I was at the time such as Manchester, London and even Portugal.

“In the summer of 2005 I was so ill and extremely anaemic my GP sent me to Little Aston Hospital to see a gynaecologist. She did an ultrasound and showed me a mass in the pelvis. She said it looked like an ovarian cyst which is very common at my age.”

Faith was booked in for surgery to remove the growth but then suffered a sudden massive loss of blood.