Dying mother used all her strength for unborn baby
Manaswini Voora was 25 weeks into her first pregnancy when she found out she had terminal cancer.
A month after giving birth, the 24-year-old Hamilton mum was dead.
Her son Vayun Bellamkonda, a premature but otherwise healthy boy, was delivered by caesarean section in early October after pregnancy grew too hard for Voora’s weakening body.
She died on November 19 after an aggressive four-month battle with lung cancer that spread to her hip and liver.
Voora, described as a sweet, shy, beautiful young woman, emigrated from India in 2016.
Her husband of two years, Jay Krishna Bellamkonda, said nothing could have prepared them for such a horrific four months.
‘‘Whatever strength she had, she [used] for the baby,’’ Bellamkonda said.
At the start of her pregnancy, doctors told Voora that her shortness of breath, difficulty walking and severe pain were probably related to the pregnancy.
‘‘She got pushed away from every doctor, GP, midwife.’’
By the time Voora was diagnosed with stage four adenocarcinoma, it was too late to save her life and the pregnancy was advanced enough that treatment would harm the child.
When the couple found out, they kept asking themselves why, Bellamkonda said.
‘‘There is no answer for that cancer.
‘‘At that point, all I could think was, I didn’t think people without smoking could get cancer.’’
His wife was strong-willed, he said, and just wanted to know how she could get better.
But doctors couldn’t risk harming the unborn baby, so targeted treatment was a no-go.
‘‘They didn’t do radiation to her because of the baby. The only request we had was, ‘Please, put Manaswini first.’
‘‘They said there are only a few months left [regardless of what doctors could do], we couldn’t do treatment – just push her life expectancy a little bit.
‘‘That was the first time I saw her crying. She was panicked and she said, ‘No, no I want to live, I want to fight strong.’ I heard in her voice that she was scared.’’
Once Vayun was born, her condition grew steadily worse.
‘‘She wasn’t well most of the time. She couldn’t even hold [Vayun] for too long.
‘‘She was struggling, struggled quite a bit.’’
Bellamkonda hates to think of anyone going through the pain his wife went through and hopes doctors will take people seriously when they tell them they are in severe pain – pregnant or not.
But the support and kindness the family has received in New Zealand has been overwhelming, he said, particularly within the Kiwi-indian community, who rallied around the couple.
The High Commission of India provided funding to help send her body back to India and a Givealittle page was created, raising $30,449, to bring her family to New Zealand for her last weeks alive. Her body left New Zealand for India with her family on November 24.
The couple agreed that Vayun – a silver lining in a tragic situation – will go to India once he is well enough to travel, where he will be cared for by both sets of grandparents while he is an infant.
Once he is a bit older, his father wants to bring him back.
‘‘She really wanted the baby. She was really happy to be pregnant ... I’m happy she got to see him.’’ she