Kayla Bittick was more than ready to start a family. She and her husband, Cory, had been trying to conceive their first child for four years. They’d also tried a round of intrauterine insemination (IUI), with no luck.
Then came news that seemed to push their dreams of becoming parents even further out of reach. Kayla was diagnosed with a rare form of cervical cancer called glassy cell cervical cancer (GCCC).
She’d gone to see her obstetrician about a symptom she first thought wasn’t a big deal.
“I started bleeding a lot after intercourse,” says Kayla, who was 29 at the time. “At first, I thought it was just my period coming early. But then it got worse and I thought I should get checked out.”
U.S. doctors diagnose about 13,360 new cases of cervical cancer every year, according to the American Cancer Society. Unlike some cancers, cervical cancer is particularly likely to be diagnosed in younger women, between ages 35 and 44. In the case of Kayla’s type of cancer, GCCC, the average age at diagnosis is even younger, by about a decade.
What does a cervical cancer diagnosis mean for women like Kayla, who hope to start or expand their families? For some, pregnancy is possible after treatment. And for others, having a family can still happen – just not the way they had expected.
High-Risk Situation
When Kayla’s obstetrician examined her cervix, the tumor was visible – it was growing that aggressively. Her cancer was at high risk of spreading to her lymph nodes. She didn’t have time to have surgery and recover before starting an intense regimen of radiation and chemotherapy.
Those treatments would help save Kayla’s life. But they would also cause her ovaries to fail – and make it impossible for her to safely carry a pregnancy to term.
“When the uterus is exposed to radiation, it becomes fibrotic and scarred,” says Terri Woodard, MD, professor of gynecologic oncology and reproductive medicine at MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, Texas, where Kayla was treated. “This not only means a much higher rate of infertility in general because it is difficult for a fertilized egg to implant in the uterus, but even if a woman is able to become pregnant, she’s at very high risk for miscarriage or preterm labor.”
Kayla was devastated. “I had always wanted to have a family and be a mom,” she says.
But there was still a way for Kayla and Cory to have a baby, Woodard explained.
Fertility-Sparing Treatments
If a woman has precancerous cells in her cervix, or early-stage cervical cancer, doctors often can treat it in “fertility sparing” ways that preserve the woman’s ability to carry a pregnancy to term.
If the oncologist finds that fertility-sparing treatment is appropriate, there are two main options, says Catherine Gordon, MD, medical director of the Fertility Center of Southern California:
In a cold knife cone biopsy, the surgeon takes out only the cancerous part of the cervix.
In a radical trachelectomy, the surgeon removes all of the cervix except where it connects to the uterus and adds a reinforcing stitch, called a cerclage. The cerclage creates “kind of pseudo-cervix to close off the uterus from the vagina,” Gordon says, “and then that patient can carry a pregnancy, although it will be higher risk.”
Women who get radical trachelectomies need close attention throughout their pregnancies from a high-risk maternal-fetal medicine specialist as well as their oncologist.
When Pregnancy Isn’t an Option
Women who are diagnosed with more advanced cervical cancers need more extensive treatment, which typically means they can’t conceive and carry a pregnancy later on.
Many need a hysterectomy, which is surgery to remove the cervix and uterus. Often, they get a radical hysterectomy, in which the surgeon removes the uterus, cervix, tissues around the cervix, and part of the vagina. If needed, they may also take out the ovaries, fallopian tubes, and nearby lymph nodes. Afterward, these women usually get radiation treatment, chemotherapy, or both to prevent any remaining cancer from spreading.
Kayla’s treatment was somewhat different. Because her cancer was at imminent risk of spreading to the lymph nodes, her doctors didn’t think it was safe to take the time to recover from a hysterectomy before starting radiation therapy. So Kayla’s treatment plan was a combination of treatments that included external beam radiation therapy, brachytherapy (internal radiation using radioactive “seeds”), and chemotherapy.
But because Kayla wanted to be able to have babies later, there was something that had to happen ASAP: retrieving eggs from her ovaries for later fertilization.
Woodard’s team raced to start this process. Doctors call it “oocyte cryopreservation,” but many people call it “egg freezing.”
For Kayla, it worked like an in vitro fertilization cycle, where she injected hormones to stimulate egg production for about three weeks. It worked. “They were very successful,” Kayla says. “We were able to retrieve a good number of eggs.” Afterward, the eggs were fertilized with Cory’s sperm.
“That gave us a little glimmer of hope throughout my treatment,” Kayla says. “If I was able to beat cancer, I would still be able to have my family. I felt really grateful for that.”
Ringing the End-of-Cancer Treatment Bell
Kayla “rang the bell” to celebrate the end of her cervical cancer treatment in June 2022. She took some recovery time and got scans over several months, which showed no signs of cancer.
It was time to pick up the dream of starting a family – with help from a surrogate.
Some families work with agencies to find a gestational surrogate, but Kayla found hers closer to home. Kayla says that during her treatment, the office manager for her cleaning company, True Cleaning Experts, offered multiple times to be her surrogate.
At first, Kayla dismissed it.
“I thought she was just being nice,” Kayla says. “And then one day, she said ‘Do you not like me? Because I’m being serious, I will be your surrogate! I enjoy being pregnant but I don’t want to have any more kids, so it’s perfect.’”
By early 2024, the surrogate pregnancy had started. “I almost felt like it wasn’t real,” Kayla says. “It all really flooded back into me, like ‘Wow. I had cancer. And now somebody else is pregnant with my baby.’ It wasn’t a negative feeling. It was just very overwhelming!”
On Nov. 17, 2024, baby Guy Bittick was born, with Cory and Kayla in the room for the delivery. “It was the best experience,” Kayla says. “We have this amazing baby who is so happy and so smart and wonderful.”
With seven frozen embryos in storage, Cory and Kayla plan to have more children. “I don’t know if they’d all stick, but it would be lovely if they did,” she says. “Maybe we could have four more? That would be great!”
She advises women facing a cervical cancer diagnosis who still want to have children to embrace all their options. There are many ways to grow a family, whether through IVF and surrogacy or adoption.
“I lost the opportunity to carry my own baby, and I was so scared about that,” Kayla says.
“But I still have my life, and I still get to have kids now. I have a different story to tell, and that’s OK. You’ll have your own firsts in different ways. Once they’re here, you forget about everything else.”
