A Long Island woman gave birth to her twin’s baby after a cancer diagnosis kept her sister from getting pregnant.
Dawn Ardolino-Policastro, of Mineola, gave birth to a healthy baby boy on Aug. 5, according to the Daily News.
Her twin sister, Allison Ardolino-Dinkelacker, learned she had stage 3 breast cancer six years ago while she was 30 weeks pregnant with her first child, the Daily News reports. She underwent chemotherapy and had an emergency C-section, leaving her with a healthy baby boy.
Although Ardolino-Dinkelacker is now cancer-free, her cancer was hormone-positive, meaning pregnancy hormones could cause new cancer cells to grow, according to the News. So when she and her husband wanted to add a second child to their family, they turned to her sister.
Ardolino-Policastro, who is married and has two boys of her own, immediately offered to carry her sister’s child when the oncologist broke the news.
While the twins declined to be interviewed, their father told the News the sisters had always been very close.
“This is a miracle baby,” he told the paper. “And I’m very excited that Dawn did this for her sister. It takes a lot.”
