When she was first diagnosed with stage 3 breast cancer at 24 years old, Aly Taylor’s dream of having children came crashing down around her.
She and her high school sweetheart, Josh, had been trying to get pregnant when doctors discovered her cancer.
After a double mastectomy and chemotherapy, doctors were certain that the radiation treatments would prevent Aly from ever conceiving a child.
They broke the news to the Taylors, who were devastated. But the couple took it as an opportunity to explore adoption. It led them to their daughter Genevieve, who they adopted in 2015.
When Genevieve was just nine months old, the Taylors got the surprise of a lifetime.
Though pregnancy was not an option, Aly began feeling nauseous. A week went by before she decided to rule the possibility out for good.
She dug up a pregnancy test they’d had in the house since before her cancer diagnosis, and learned that she was in fact—pregnant.
“We were told, medically, ‘You’re not going to get pregnant. It’s not gonna work,’” Josh says. “And so for us, it’s clearly a miracle.”
They were told there wasn’t even a “slim chance” of having a child.
Now, not only were they expecting a baby they were told would never come, but just one month into her pregnancy, the Taylors learned that Genevieve’s birth mother was pregnant again as well.
“She said, ‘Aly we’re not expecting you to adopt this baby because you’re pregnant,’ but immediately my heart was drawn to this baby,” Aly said.
Given the opportunity to adopt Genevieve’s biological sibling, the couple didn’t hesitate.
“We just could not imagine saying ‘no’ to another baby when at one point we didn’t know if we’d ever have children,“ says Aly.
The Louisiana family moved to Kentucky temporarily so they could be there to welcome their biological daughter, Vera, just 11 days prior to the birth of their second adopted daughter, Lydia.
Josh says their life is so much better today than they could have ever imagined.
“If you had asked us five years ago, ‘Give us your dream, write it down,’ our dreams would come up so short of where we’ve ended up.”
The couple has since been featured on TLC’s new show Rattled, which follows five couples through the ups and downs of parenthood. Their story has inspired and encouraged viewers from all over who are swimming through the treacherous waters of infertility, adoption and even cancer.
When asked by the TODAY hosts what they attribute their miraculous journey to, Aly replied without hesitation: “Definitely God. He has just blessed us,” adding that they “thank Him every day” for their three beautiful baby girls.
“The goal is to give people hope,” says Josh. “To know that when it’s dark, it’s gonna get better.”
You can catch more of the Taylor’s story on TLC’s Rattled every Tuesday night.
