Love, cancer and pregnancy

Washington Post

12-06-2025

PROVO, Utah — The baby shower was a mash-up of imaginary worlds: the Mad Hatter's tea party, Neverland, Tatooine.
Tanner Martin, the dad-to-be, sat off to the side, a sherpa blanket across his lap, a whip of plastic tubing around his face tethered to an oxygen tank. As he looked around the room filled with young parents and children, his greatest wish was that he would live long enough to meet his own daughter.
He smiled as a friend walked in, with a toddler cradled against his chest.
'How's it being a father?'
'You're in for a treat, man.'
'How old is she?'
'Nine months.'
'Nine months …' Tanner echoed.
The math stung.
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Tanner was diagnosed with Stage 4 colon cancer in November 2020 at age 25, and since then, life had been a series of starts and stops. He managed to finish college and get a job, but lost it when fatigue from cancer treatments kept him from work. Instead of launching a career, he moved into his in-laws' basement.
During a period of relative stability and hope in the fall of 2024, when a new treatment regimen appeared to be working, Tanner and his wife, Shay, decided to start a family.
Shay Martin at a baby shower for her and her husband, Tanner, on April 12 in Provo. Tanner, seated, greets 9-month-old Penny Jake and her parents, Madison and Dakota Jake, at the shower.
In posts on TikTok and Instagram that were originally made for family and friends but soon went viral, Tanner, now 30, and Shay, 29, are all dances, thumbs-ups, kisses and smiles. But the roughly 1,700 days they have been in this fight, the more than 100 ER visits, 30-plus hospitalizations and five surgeries have taken a toll.
Young and Navigating Cancer
As cancer rates surge among young people, this series explores navigating the illness in the prime of life, where dating, careers and identity collide with diagnosis, treatment and survival.
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At the start of the year, Tanner's health took a sharp turn. The couple found themselves facing an unbearable duality: The joy of preparing for their daughter's arrival and the grief of bracing for her father's death. Painting a nursery between painful medical appointments. Seeing their baby's face on an ultrasound after selecting Tanner's casket.
Just days before the baby shower in April, the call came: The last-resort IV chemo regimen that had been keeping Tanner alive had failed.
The baby was due in
57 days.
Generation Cancer
This year, more than 200,000 people ages 15 to 49 will be newly diagnosed with cancer, joining more than 2.1 million Americans who were also diagnosed as young adults and are living with the disease. Researchers call them 'Generation C,' or 'Generation Cancer.'
Cancer has long been seen as a disease of aging. Bodies accumulate cellular damage over time, raising the likelihood that a mutated cell will go haywire, multiply rapidly and become cancer. But since 2000, the rate of new cancer diagnoses for people 50 or older has fallen by 11 percent. For those ages 15 to 49, it has climbed by 10 percent. In cancer medicine, those under age 50 are generally considered young. Historically, the age has marked a critical threshold, reflecting differences in diagnosis, treatment and prognosis.
Graphics showing the change in cancer rate for younger adults (ages 15 to 49) compared with people 50 or older. The former has increased by 10% compared with a decrease of 11% among the latter.
Rate of cancer diagnosis
increases in the young
While older people have cancer more often,
the rate of diagnosis for younger people
has gone up since 2000, while the rate
for people 50 or older is declining.
15
%
10
Age
15-49
5
0
-5
-10
50 or older
-15
2000
2022
Data for 2020 was omitted because of changes in
diagnoses during the covid-19 pandemic
Rate of cancer diagnosis
increases in the young
While older people have cancer more often, the rate of
diagnosis for younger people has gone up since 2000,
while the rate for people 50 or older is declining.
15
%
10
Age
15-49
5
0
-5
-10
50 or older
-15
2000
2022
Data for 2020 was omitted because of changes in diagnoses
during the covid-19 pandemic
Rate of cancer diagnosis increases in the young
While older people have cancer more often, the rate of diagnosis for younger people
has gone up since 2000, while the rate for people 50 or older is declining.
15
%
10
Age 15-49
5
0
-5
-10
50 or older
-15
2000
2022
Data for 2020 was omitted because of changes in diagnoses during the covid-19 pandemic
Doctors are perplexed. They began to notice the trend a few years ago with Generation X. But it's millennials, now ages 29 to 44, who are the first to be living their entire adulthoods with an increasing threat of cancer.
Young adults who survive their cancer diagnosis — and most of them do — still face the potential of a greatly changed future, with illness threading through budding relationships and families, the launching of careers and the building of a financial foundation for life. They're sick at a time when their bodies are supposed to be at their physiological peak.
No one yet knows why. But in addition to established risk factors such as obesity and physical inactivity, researchers are urgently investigating generational shifts — increased consumption of ultra-processed foods, greater exposure to microplastics and chemicals, and disruptions to natural sleep cycles caused by screens, artificial light, frequent travel and more.
Rates of 10 cancers — including colorectal cancer — have risen among adolescents and young adults over the past two decades, according to a Washington Post analysis. Young people of Native American descent like Tanner have the highest rate of colorectal cancer of any racial and ethnic group, The Post found, and the sharpest rate of recent increase.
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Dreams
The boy with the big brown eyes and the tall, freckle-faced girl met in passing as teens through church activities, then reconnected as adults, hanging out as friends before realizing it was more.
Tanner was always the kind of person who, his family and friends say, made the world feel friendlier. As a kid, he'd wave hello to strangers, a habit he never quite outgrew. He was an avid reader and his devotion to his family and his heritage (he's a quarter Catawba, a quarter Navajo and half White) anchored him.
Shay fell in love with that bright spirit. Color-coded calendars and meticulously researched decisions dictated her world. She was the type who could write a dream in her planner and find a way to make it real.
She was disarmed by his happy-go-lucky ways. He was spellbound by her intellect and creative spark.
Shay and Tanner on their wedding day in 2018. (Cecilia Harvard) Shay and Tanner in Cabo San Lucas, Mexico, in 2022. (Fernanda de la Rosa)
They were engaged within seven months, married within a year — on a glorious October day in 2018, joined by 200 of their family and friends.
The first few years were happy and full of promise. Tanner and Shay were both working full time and going to school full time. He was at a call center; she worked as a receptionist. They both attended Utah Valley University, where they had chosen the same major — behavioral science.
In the rare quiet moments, they dreamed — about opening a therapy practice together, about the home they would share and the family they would build.
Diagnosis
Tanner's symptoms began with stomachaches in 2020. Nothing terrible, just a persistent soreness that made him feel unwell. But that was followed by progressively worse trouble going to the bathroom. Other than being overweight, he had been healthy, and doctors found no obvious signs of anything wrong in a battery of blood tests. It took six months before a specialist suggested a colonoscopy. By that time, Tanner's cancer had spread from his colon to his liver. Stage 4. His doctors were reluctant to put a timeline on his survival, but they were clear that his condition was terminal.
He was 25.
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The first few years of living scan-to-scan were a blur. Tanner was constantly in and out of the hospital, and lost more than 50 pounds. During one particularly brutal eight-month stretch, he developed sepsis, a life-threatening infection, and spent Christmas hooked up to IVs. The couple and their 'go wagon' — stocked with blankets, a Nintendo Switch and random books — became a familiar sight at three Salt Lake-area hospitals. They became experts at interpreting Tanner's seemingly endless labs and scans — later turning to ChatGPT.
During better times, they made pizzas, danced to Macklemore's 'Glorious' and tried to live as fully as they could. Despite having trouble typing after losing feeling in his fingertips, a side effect of chemo, Tanner completed his coursework for his bachelor of arts, and his academic adviser and three professors came to his home to deliver his diploma. A canceled trip to Asia instead became short getaways — to Arizona, where Shay had lived as a child, and Maryland, where Tanner's cousins lived. When Tanner was hospitalized right before a professional family-photo shoot, he was photoshopped into the serene field where everyone else had posed.
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Tanner eventually went on Social Security disability, and he and Shay were grateful for its health benefits. Their parents helped, too. Still, at times Tanner had to settle for lower-cost alternatives to the medications his doctors preferred.
In Tanner's family, long lives are the norm — three of his grandparents are thriving in their 70s (the fourth died years ago in a car accident), and his parents are healthy in their 50s. Genetic testing revealed no known markers for colon cancer.
Shay, seated on the floor, and Tanner, behind her, play games after Sunday dinner Feb. 9 at their aunt and uncle's home.
Shay and Tanner open gifts from Tanner's family at a baby shower at their church on Feb. 8.
Milton Watts, 77, his maternal grandfather, a proud member of the Catawba Nation, said it feels unnatural that his firstborn grandson would die before him. Milton envisioned Tanner as a leader of the family's next generation. Though Milton said he has no doubt there is life after death, 'to let go of someone here — that's hard, especially so young. … It just seems unfair.'
Tanner's only sibling, Spencer, was 19 when his big brother was diagnosed, and he stayed close. He delayed college and took only part-time jobs — never making any plans beyond a few days out. Tanner's parents, Tom and Kim Martin, also described feeling they were in a 'holding pattern.' Shay's parents, Amy and Steve Wright, kept their jobs flexible to be able to backstop Shay during emergencies — of which there were many.
This collective gave Shay the bandwidth to get her master's degree and start work as a counselor, meeting with patients on Zoom in the afternoons and evenings. But even with the six of them working together — along with the kindness of other relatives and friends — the weight on Shay was immense.
A bun in the oven, a cemetery headstone
Tanner and Shay had always wanted a large family. He had banked his sperm shortly after his diagnosis, knowing that chemo can lead to infertility. Things had been too touch-and-go for a while to consider having a child. But during an appointment in October, his doctor said Tanner was doing great — and it was possible he would live at least five more years (a key milestone in cancer survival). They decided it was time.
Shay read everything she could on parenting and concluded they needed to have a girl. She thought a lot about 'anticipatory trauma,' a type of distress about a future threat and how a single parent with a child of the same gender might have an easier time.
Shay shows off her baby bump for social media followers on Feb. 7.
'It raises the chances of every bad thing happening in life if you have one parent. If you are the same gender, it helps reduce that. We were doing everything we could to give our child the best chance,' she said.
It was a chemo week for Tanner when Shay found out she was pregnant. She grabbed the stick she'd peed on, woke up Tanner and hit record on her phone.
'You got da bun in the oven!' Tanner exclaimed.
Around the same time last fall, Shay saw on social media that one of her high school classmates had taken a job as a 'death doula,' describing her role as supporting people through the emotional and practical aspects of death. Intrigued, Shay reached out. Tanner was not enthusiastic.
'It felt a little hopeless,' Tanner said of prepping for death. 'I wanted to prep to be living.'
But he said he soon realized that talking about death and looking at his future burial plot were empowering. 'Instead of making us sad, it made us laugh. I patted the ground when I lay on my future spot and I was like, 'Aww, there's no shade.''
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So they went shopping for a casket, picked out a headstone with both their names and — with Tanner a devoted Star Wars fan — drafted a funeral plan that would feature a harpist playing its iconic theme. A family friend paid for a filmmaker to create a documentary of his life story, and Shay threw Tanner a 'living funeral' themed like a Hollywood premiere.
Shay posted a clip on TikTok for loved ones who could not attend. They were not prepared for the outpouring of good wishes from strangers all over the world: 2.6 million views for the headstone-shopping video, 3.5 million for the living funeral.
Prenatal appointments and ER visits
5 months until baby
As 2025 began and Shay passed the first trimester of her pregnancy, Tanner and Shay became increasingly excited about the baby, AmyLou. They nicknamed her 'Jiaozi,' or 'Dumpling' in Chinese, for the snack Tanner had loved as a kid when his parents worked in Taiwan as English teachers for a few years. They looked forward to every milestone, especially February's first 4D ultrasound, when they would see their daughter's face in vivid detail for the first time.
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They often imagined their life ahead — stepping into parenthood side-by-side. But with each passing day, their paths diverged. As the baby inside Shay grew, Tanner's health declined.
In February, a few days after the prenatal check up, Tanner was at his own doctor's office.
He was in Year 5 of his illness and his body had suddenly started to swell like a balloon. It had become so imbalanced from the cancer that fluid was building up in pockets of his body — his lungs, his stomach, his legs. He was having trouble breathing, walking, sometimes even talking.
In the week leading up to the appointment, he had been in the ER at dawn on Monday, in a doctor's office for a procedure hours later, and at another doctor's appointment on Tuesday. By Wednesday, Tanner was at a breaking point while Shay was at work. He called for his father, father-in-law and best friend to come to his bedside at home. Tanner asked them to pray with him to have the strength to go on. Tanner rests before going to church. Tanner at home on Feb. 8. Tanner chats with his father, Tom Martin, at home on April 16.
It was now Friday.
Hunched over a table, Tanner cried out as a doctor pierced one of his lungs from the back with a giant needle.
'You want to keep going?' the doctor asked.
'Keep going,' Tanner replied.
Shay squeezed his hand and stared as the clear bottle behind him filled with bloody liquid from the needle.
After the procedure, Tanner walked unsteadily down the hallway, lurching every few steps with a violent cough. He threw up next to the vending machines and saw blood on the tissues he used to clean up.
Despite it all, Tanner was determined to meet up with another couple at an escape room as he and Shay had planned. Shay wasn't so sure. When Tanner's pain had not receded by 3 p.m., she worried that the procedure had caused a serious issue — and asked for a third time whether they should reschedule.
'No,' Tanner repeated, his voice slightly raised. 'I want to go. We'll go to the ER after.'
Nesting, living
4 months until baby
The weeks between chemo treatments were when they truly lived.
For eight months, Tanner had been on a grueling two-week treatment cycle — just enough to keep the disease at bay. It left the couple carefully rationing their time and energy, packing as much life as they could into the days when he wasn't tethered to an infusion pump or sleeping, the days when he felt a bit more like himself.
One afternoon, they painted the baby's nursery — a calming space filled with Winnie the Pooh figurines and golden bows. Family members sometimes joked that Tanner had a bit of Pooh's gentle, lovable spirit.
Another day, as Tanner's hair continued to fall out, he decided to shave it all off. They visited a barber who turned his cut into something bold, carving the intricate swirls of the Star Wars Rebel Alliance's starbird on the side of his head. Later, they attended a writers conference, where Tanner got teary-eyed when he met one of his favorite childhood authors, Brandon Mull, who wrote the best-selling Fablehaven fantasy series. Tanner reacts to his new haircut by Amanda Nevel, owner of Bloody Mary's Barbers, on Feb. 10. Shay looks on as Tanner receives his haircut. A lifelong Star Wars fan, Tanner has the Rebel Alliance starbird shaved into his close-cropped hair.
They were overjoyed when church friends threw them their first baby shower, an intimate, heartfelt gathering in February. (The fairy tale shower, hosted by family and friends, was their second.)
They also found a welcome break by heading to a monthly family potluck. It felt like a glimpse into the life Tanner and Shay had once dreamed of: Four of their uncle and aunt's seven kids, ranging in age from 8 to 16, were at home, and Tanner caught up on the news of the younger ones' soccer games and the older kids' schoolwork, and joked with the adults about the plunging stock market. At one point, Shay's parents shared the news that Shay's sister and her husband, who had been living in Brazil, would be moving back in about six months.
'He can meet our baby then,' Tanner said, his face lighting up at the thought. Shay looked down at him, silently, and tried to smile.
'Be honest'
3.5 months until baby
Moments after wrapping up a photo shoot for a satirical TikTok — with props like a giant hospital bill, an IV pole and fake meds — about the injustices of being young with cancer, Tanner and Shay hurried to their car. It was March and they were running late for a virtual appointment to go over Tanner's latest scans.
His oncologist's face appeared on Tanner's phone screen.
'I'm all right,' Tanner told him.
Shay shot him a look. 'Be honest.'
Wrapped in a thick sweater blanket, with another light-brown throw draped over him, Tanner conceded: 'I'm cold. I feel sick. My back hurts.'
Shay had watched the treatment take its toll: the nausea and sores, the exhaustion that lingered long after each infusion. But Tanner had shot down the idea of reducing the chemo in the past, and Nick Thomson of Revere Health, a local physicians network, didn't push this time.
'At this point, as long as Tanner is in agreement that he's tolerating the chemo well enough to keep going … I would continue to get as much mileage as we can out of it, because we seem to be enjoying success,' Thomson said.
'Those are my thoughts exactly,' Tanner agreed.
Shay turned to Tanner again. 'And what's your definition of tolerating chemo well?'
Tanner didn't hesitate. 'I'm alive.'
Outside, the sky was overcast as Shay started up the car for the drive home.
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Babymoon
2 months until baby
Tanner and Shay had honeymooned in Hawaii in May 2019, and as Tanner's illness progressed, they longed to reexperience the joy of that time. So earlier this year, they booked their babymoon, optimizing Tanner's chemotherapy around it.
They timed their departure carefully: Tanner would be two weeks out from treatment, when his energy typically peaked. They delayed the next round by a week. Tanner was anxious about the gap — afraid that stretching the usual two-week chemo cycle to three might give the cancer room to grow. But it was just one of countless choices he had made since his diagnosis — choosing to live, however briefly, over surrendering to fear.
For a few precious days, a very pregnant Shay pushed Tanner in a wheelchair through quiet paths and lookout points. He dipped his toes into the warm Pacific surf, watched flames dance at a fire show under the stars, and bit into fresh pineapple spears on their hotel balcony. It was the most at peace Tanner had felt in a long time.
Shortly after their return, that calm was shattered. Shay and Tanner on their babymoon in Hawaii. (Braden Geddes)
Tanner and Shay sat side-by-side in the exam room at a suburban office park on April 15, not touching, their expressions grim as they faced his oncologist.
Just days earlier, they had been on a video call from their couch with the same doctor, Thomson, who had been with them since the start. The latest scan results had come in, Thomson said. As soon as Tanner had heard enough to know where the conversation was heading, he excused himself, saying he didn't want the details and padded to his bedroom.
Shay stayed on the line: New miniature tumors had appeared in Tanner's lungs almost overnight. The cancer had reached his lymph nodes, too.
In almost any other situation, for a patient in Tanner's condition, doctors might have recommended hospice: a shift away from treatment, toward easing pain in the time that remained. But Thomson knew about the baby.
In the office that day, he told Tanner and Shay it was time to stop the current chemotherapy regimen — it was causing more harm than good now. But there was one more option: a daily pill called fruquintinib that might slow the cancer's growth. It wasn't a cure. A recent study showed that metastatic colon cancer patients survived an average of about seven months after starting on it, a mere 2.5 months more than they might have otherwise. Still, Thomson tried to be upbeat.
'I'm excited to try this out. … Let's hope this new medicine can slow this cancer down a little bit, keep you going, Tanner,' he said.
The baby question
1.5 months until baby
The first two trimesters of Shay's pregnancy had sailed along, and she had come to assume the rest would, too, so as she lay on the exam table for her 32/33-week ultrasound, her main thoughts were of Tanner. With each day, the question grew louder in her mind: Was there any way to bring the baby into the world early — while he was still here to meet her?
The sonographer ran her wand over the warm gel on Shay's stomach, measuring the baby's head and counting fingers and toes, calling out 'so cute' when they caught a glimpse of a recognizable part of her face or body.
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Shay watched the monitor, rapt. Tanner — exhausted from his treatments — teetered on the edge of sleep in his wheelchair, his head down and body folded onto itself.
Within a few minutes, Donna Dizon, a fetal medicine specialist, came in to go over the results. After some initial worries, the baby's growth had picked up. She'd moved from the 7th percentile a few weeks earlier to the 29th and weighed in at an estimated 4 pounds 5 ounces. Even better, she had shifted position: head down, as she should be for delivery.
'She's ready. Come on out, Jiaozi,' Tanner said during a moment of lucidity. En route to medical appointments for them both, Shay and Tanner pick up a plate Tanner made for AmyLou on April 15. Shay holds sonogram images of her daughter during a prenatal medical checkup on April 15. Keri Johnson, a sonogram imaging technologist, shows prenatal baby pictures to Shay and Tanner.
Then came the rhythmic 'whomp-whomp-whomp-whomp …' of the Doppler. Peaks and valleys lit up the monitor. The doctor pointed to the screen — it was a reading of blood flow through the umbilical cord.
Dizon paused. Normally, as pregnancy progresses, resistance in the placenta decreases, but in Shay's case, it had increased. Sometimes, elevated resistance can slow a baby's growth and indicate a risk for preeclampsia, a serious and sometimes life-threatening pregnancy complication. The doctor did her best to ease their fears: 'It just tells us we need to keep a closer eye on things.'
The idea of delivering early — just so Tanner could meet their daughter — had been off the table. Medical guidelines are strict: Unless there's a clear risk to mother or baby, scheduling a birth before 39 weeks isn't permitted. A baby's lungs, immune system and vital organs continue developing right up to the end.
But the scan had raised enough concern for doctors to reconsider. With cautious agreement, they recommended scheduling an early delivery.
Shay chose the first date they would allow: May 15. Guess how much I love you
Tanner's phone was filling up with video messages and letters to his future daughter: Stories of his travels. References to his favorite movies and video games. Advice about dating ('Wait until you're 30'). About religion ('what I think about it and where I think she can find answers'). Tanner is a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, but he said he wants his daughter to find her own path. Reading bedtime stories like 'Guess How Much I Love You,' a picture book about a bunny who loves his dad and how much his dad loves him back.
Tanner worried about how he'd look to his daughter as his condition progressed. He decided that if he looked too ill, he'd switch to letters and just recordings of his voice. Tanner colors a page in an alphabet book for his unborn daughter.
The sicker he got, the more Tanner thought of the future beyond his own life. On a quiet Sunday afternoon at home, he brought up the delicate subject of Shay remarrying.
'I would much rather you be with someone who can take care of you than you be alone. Or my daughter not having a father,' he said.
Shay grabbed a couch pillow and hugged it. 'It's been really lonely — like really — on the 'on' weeks,' she said.
The 'on' weeks were when Tanner got chemo. He's there, Shay has confided to her family, but not really there. In the darkness of one of those chemo weeks earlier in the year, Shay had broken down screaming and crying, something she had not done before.
There was a stretch of silence as Shay tried to think of the words to express her feelings.
'I think I could remarry,' she said, finally. 'But I don't think I could remarry someone that doesn't know what it's like to love someone else that died.'
Tanner nodded.
'I am not ready'
1 day until baby
For the day before the baby's scheduled birth, Shay had mapped out a full schedule: finalizing her birth plan, packing her hospital bag (including the 'f--- cancer' socks) and putting the finishing touches on AmyLou's room.
One last task remained — decorating Tanner's 'space.'
Their death doula had recommended setting up their bedroom to bring Tanner comfort and joy at the end. Tanner didn't have specific instructions, just that he wanted it to 'feel like fall, smell like fall' — his favorite season. So, while Tanner was at a doctor's appointment, Shay unpacked a stack of Amazon boxes. And just a few yards from the bassinet where their baby would sleep, Shay began arranging candles on Tanner's overbed tray, wound leaf garlands over the curtain rods behind his pillows and laid out cozy socks at the foot of the hospital bed they recently moved into the apartment.
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As she was finishing it all, her mother called from work, asking how Shay was doing.
'Anxious, excited,' Shay replied.
This was true, but there was more. When she got off the phone, a different feeling overwhelmed her: grief. Tanner had been hanging on for this moment of meeting his daughter. Once the moment came, what then?
In a moment of raw honesty one recent evening, she told her parents: 'I'm not ready. I am not ready for life without Tanner.'
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Shay was scheduled to leave for the hospital at about 7 p.m. to prep for the induction the next morning, but before that, she asked for a blessing. In the LDS church, a blessing is a prayer of comfort, healing and encouragement.
Tanner, who was resting his head on the dining room table and drifting back and forth between sleep and wakefulness, suddenly became alert and volunteered.
'I've just been feeling some grief today,' Shay told him.
'I know,' Tanner replied. 'It's kind of bittersweet a little bit.'
In his prayer, he talked about how families are still families wherever they are physically or spiritually. Tanner told her that the journey would not necessarily be an easy one but that she would never be alone in her hardship.
Shay sobbed. Shay and Tanner kiss good night on May 14, as Shay prepares to give birth the next morning at Intermountain Health American Fork Hospital. With them is Shay's father, Steve Wright.
Hello, AmyLou
AmyLou Kinyaa' Aanii Martin entered the world on May 15 at 6:56 a.m. Sometime between Shay's last scan and the trip to the hospital, AmyLou had turned the wrong way, throwing off the birth plan. The doctors scheduled a last-minute Caesarean section. Both mom and baby made it through the birth without complications.
A nurse immediately scooped up AmyLou, swaddled her and carefully placed her in Tanner's arms.
'I've been so excited to meet you … ' he said, his glasses misted over by tears. 'I love you so much. I've been waiting for this for so long.'
Soon after, the new family moved to a recovery room, where Tanner — sporting a T-shirt with the French slang expression 'papa poule,' or 'daddy hen' — cuddled up with Shay on the bed, their newborn nestled between them. They snapped a photo and texted it to family and friends with two words: 'She's here.'
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On the day AmyLou was born, Tanner had managed to stay at the hospital for over four hours — a remarkable feat, considering that in recent weeks he'd barely been able to stay awake for more than 20 or 30 minutes at a time. But later that day, after returning home to rest, his body gave out. His new medication had made him wildly ill for weeks, and that Thursday he vomited nearly a dozen times. By the next morning, he was too weak to return to the hospital.
As Shay lay in her hospital bed, gently rocking AmyLou's bassinet with one arm, Tanner called. He apologized for not being there. Shay told him she understood — and then cried, nearly without stopping, for the next 18 hours.
Shay had imagined a joyful homecoming that Saturday — the three of them leaving the hospital together as a new family. Instead, she and her mother brought AmyLou home to Tanner.
Tanner kisses his 2-day-old daughter, AmyLou, as Shay watches at their Utah home on May 17.
Wanting to create something beautiful from the day, Tanner planned a special moment: He invited both his and Shay's parents over for a father-daughter dance. He wanted to film it as a gift for AmyLou to watch on her wedding day. He chose a cover of the Phil Collins song 'You'll Be in My Heart,' from Disney's 'Tarzan.'
Tanner wasn't able to stand, let alone dance, so Shay gently placed AmyLou — dressed in a delicate white gown with cascading ruffles — on his lap as he worried about holding her steady.
'I'm scared,' he said.
'It's okay,' Shay said, tucking AmyLou close to Tanner.
The music played: 'I will protect you from all around you. I will be here, don't you cry.'
Tanner leaned in, resting his head inches from AmyLou's, his arms encircling her tiny body.
Newborn AmyLou has her hair washed at the hospital on May 15.