Diagnosed with cancer one day before IVF, Batavia woman calls her daughter’s birth a miracle

When she first found out she had leukemia, Ioanna Lo Destro’s heart dropped. Instead of her own mortality, her hopes and fears turned to her dreams of motherhood, her first IVF treatment scheduled for the very next day. Now six years later, as her daughter Penelope celebrates her first birthday, Lo Destro reflects back to those dark days holding onto nothing but hope, convinced her daughter is living proof miracles can happen.

“After she was first laid on my chest, I was overwhelmed and crying realizing what we’ve dreamed and prayed for was finally here, this is our miracle,” Lo Destro said. “When I hold her, Penelope’s joy is contagious. When she wakes up from a nap and looks up at me, I know I’m her special person. Now that she’s growing and thriving, I have to pause and reflect every day, it’s so special to be able to celebrate and share our miracle.”

Lo Destro, a former teacher at Elk Grove High School who lives with her husband in Batavia, said it was a full circle moment being able to celebrate Penelope’s first birthday with all the family and friends who supported them throughout the journey. She said their support was invaluable during the heavier moments she struggled to maintain faith.

Lo Destro said she first felt some lumps on her neck about a week after her 31st birthday. Her husband and her had been struggling for the past year and a half to get pregnant and were motivating themselves for their first in-vitro fertilization treatment.

“A nurse called me with test results and said, ‘You have some abnormalities, you need to go to the E.R. right away,’” Lo Destro said. “After a million tests, they announced I had leukemia, my whole world crashed. It just destroyed me thinking I couldn’t get pregnant. I was more consumed with losing motherhood than my mortality with cancer.”

Lo Destro said more than denial, facing mortality shed light on the highest purpose she wanted to survive for. She said she begged her oncologist to give her a couple of weeks to freeze her eggs before the potentially hazardous chemotherapy and spinal taps for her aggressive, blood cancer began.

“The oncologist said I won’t be here in a couple of weeks if we don’t start now,” Lo Destro said. “Then it hit me, I don’t think I was able to process how close I was to my deathbed. It still brings up tears and emotions because everything could have so easily gone the other way.”

Dr. Lia Ann Bernardi, a reproductive, endocrinology and infertility specialist at Northwestern Medicine Center for Fertility and Reproductive Medicine who worked alongside Lo Destro during her journey, said one of their greatest worries was that the cancer treatments would further damage Lo Destro’s already low ovarian reserve, or egg supply, preventing IVF from being a viable option.

Many women who undergo cancer treatments lose the ability to still produce eggs and potentially conceive naturally or with fertility treatments. That’s why it is highly recommended for a patient to freeze their eggs before any cancer treatments begin.

“When she came to see us after her chemotherapy, her egg supply was even lower than it had been when she was first tested during her infertility diagnosis,” Bernardi said. “Success with IVF for someone with such a diminished ovarian reserve is more limited. We knew there was never a guarantee that she was going to be able to try again after her cancer was cured and be successful. Throughout it all, she was so amazing and resilient.”

During IVF cycles, fertility drugs help stimulate a patient’s ovaries to produce multiple eggs for extraction. Those eggs can then be frozen or fertilized with sperm in the laboratory to create an embryo. A viable embryo is then planted in the patient’s uterus where it may or may not implant into a successful fetus. The process helps mitigate infertility issues where the women’s body is hostile to successful fertilization and development.

Following the U.S. Supreme Court overturning Roe v. Wade in 2022, striking down a constitutional right to an abortion, the state Supreme Court of Alabama ruled in 2024 that frozen embryos are considered children under the state’s wrongful death statue. The decision cast doubt on the future of IVF because multiple embryos are created in the lab during the lengthy process of trying to achieve a successful pregnancy.

“IVF is such a powerful tool for mothers when they don’t have many other options,” Bernardi said. “IVF is an amazing treatment strategy for both patients that have infertility and for patients who have cancer or another medical condition. As women age they produce less eggs, so we can also use the technology to help people have children when the timing is right in their lives.”

Lo Destro’s first two IVF cycle attempts in 2018 after beginning her cancer treatments were unsuccessful. After her last batch of chemotherapy, she was successfully in remission from the leukemia, but the cancer treatments had the unfortunate effect of ceasing her menstrual cycles for several years to come.

“Even through the darkest days and moments, I tried to strive for optimism as much as possible, but I was also realistic,” Lo Destro said. “My husband, my family and friends were the best support system, but you can’t help feeling lonely and isolated during it even when you have so much love around you.”

Then something miraculous happened after ending three years of cancer treatments and waiting and hoping for her body to respond. Lo Destro underwent three more IVF cycles, but received a special call regarding an embryo placed back inside her uterus following her very first cycle after her return in remission. A blood pregnancy test finally came back positive.

“I can picture exactly where we were when we got the news, I tear up thinking about it,” Lo Destro said. “We were so overwhelmed with gratitude and disbelief, because it’s something we prayed about for years and years, it didn’t seem real. I was a little hesitant to celebrate because I was knocked down for so long, I was terrified something would happen again. I just help on to hope.”

Bernardi said she was privileged to play a role in Lo Destro’s long journey.

“I remember feeling so overjoyed when I knew she had conceived after that embryo transfer,” Bernardi said. “She had worked so hard to get there. She had been through so much, years and years of heartbreak. It was amazing when we were able to finally say, ‘you’re pregnant.’”

Bernardi said it was important to continue counseling and evaluating on the health of any organs that may have been affected by the cancer treatments to ensure the greatest maternal health throughout the pregnancy. Bernardi said when Lo Destro underwent an ultrasound at 8-weeks during the pregnancy and everything looked healthy, she felt comfortable transitioning Lo Destro over to her pregnancy team.

Lo Destro said it took a while for the reality to set in. She continued to fear that somehow this miracle would be taken away from her again. She said she focused on getting through the pregnancy day by day until her faith began filling her with complete optimism again.

Lo Destro said she and her husband are incredibly grateful that IVF was even an option for them let alone to have the success they experienced. She said the scientific advancements are tremendous and that she prays and hopes that IVF continues to be an option for families for years to come.

She said every day, she will try to raise and instill within her daughter Penelope the same virtues she would tell any mother facing fertility challenges.

“We all go through adversity, but never give up on hope,” Lo Destro said. “It’s so easy to dwell in negativity, but you must rely on your strength too. Miracles do happen. Don’t let yourself live in the darkness. Find your way out into the light.”