How I missed a 5kg tumour the size of a football growing next to my baby until the 33rd week of my pregnancy..

A young mum who had a 5kg cancerous tumour in her ovary growing alongside her baby has revealed how the lesion went unnoticed for so long. 

Emily Wiles, 28, from Brisbane, was 33 weeks pregnant with her second child Eli when doctors had to perform an emergency C-section after finding the huge mass. 

Eli, now nine weeks, spent a short time in the NICU but was relatively unaffected by the tumour growing alongside him.

While the youngster appears to be in the clear Emily has a long road ahead and is currently fighting through four long months of chemotherapy while while caring for baby Eli and her two-year-old toddler Asa with the support of her husband, Luke. 

Unfortunately the tumour was found to be a Small Cell Carcinoma of the Ovary Hypercalcemic Type (SCCOHT) - one of the most dangerous types of ovarian cancer. 

Emily told FEMAIL she does not yet know what her future will hold as her type of cancer is rare and very little research has been done on combating it. 

Emily Wiles (left) is battling ovarian cancer after a 5kg tumour was discovered in her abdomen when she was 33 weeks pregnant with her son Eli (centre left). Pictured with her eldest son Asa (centre right) and husband Luke (right)

'We have a lot of help which makes all the difference but we're just doing the best we can and trying to spend as much time together as possible,' she said about how they handle the workload. 

Emily's pregnancy with Eli was completely normal until she started to experience abdominal pain at about 30 weeks. 

'That was the only thing that gave anything away. The first couple of days were like, 'Oh, this is a bit weird'. It sort of came and went. Nothing crazy, a bit of Panadol  managed it,' she said. 

'Each day it got progressively worse. Panadol wasn't taking anything away, it was becoming difficult to walk and eventually the pain was so much I couldn't sleep.'

Despite having a baby, a 5kg tumour and 4kg of fluid growing inside her, Emily's bump was only slightly bigger than normal.  

'It tracked pretty normal up until later on. That photo of me was the morning of surgery, I would say that's what my bump looked like at almost 40 weeks pregnant with my first,' she said referring to a Polaroid picture of her in hospital. 

'It definitely was a bit bigger but some people track bigger anyway so we didn't think that much of it.'

The pain was so unbearable Emily went to hospital where she was told it was probably caused by issues with her ligaments and that she should see a physiotherapist. 

'That photo of me was the morning of surgery, I would say that's what my bump looked like at almost 40 weeks pregnant with my first,' Emily said

'You do question yourself like, 'Oh, it must just be pregnancy stuff, I need to suck it up,' but it kept getting worse,' she said. 

'My husband said

'We're not going to accept if this is going to be the rest of your pregnancy so we're going to get another opinion'.'

At 31 weeks she returned to hospital desperate for answers where she was tested for a range of causes including a UTI and early labour but nothing was found.

'I sat there questioning myself trying to figure out how to manage the pain better then they ended up doing an after-hours ultrasound,' she said.

'That's when (the doctors) figured out something was in there that shouldn't be. They didn't say at that stage they thought it was cancer, I don't think they really knew.'

Emily was told by hospital staff they had picked up something suspicious and that she would need to be transferred to another hospital. 

'They said baby's all fine but there is something going on and we need to do some further investigation and they just described it as a growth,' she said.  

She is going through four months of chemotherapy as the tumour was Small Cell Carcinoma of the Ovary Hypercalcemic Type  - one of the most dangerous forms of ovarian cancer

'That's when it clicked for us that this baby was going to be coming out.' 

The next day Emily had two more ultrasounds and was given the news the growth was a tumour but it wasn't determined yet to be cancerous.  

'At the time they were limited to ultrasounds which don't really give you the full picture when you're looking at anything but the baby,' she said.

'It was pretty blurry and difficult for them to determine the size, especially with the baby right next to it. All we knew was that there was something pretty big in there and we needed to get it out.

'It looked like it was going to be a tumour of some kind and our reaction was that it was going to be benign because what tumour grows that fast? It's often benign tumours that grow faster.'

The mum was scheduled for surgery the next week to remove the mass and deliver Eli. 

Emily was feeling anxious about Eli coming sooner than expected and to find out if the tumour was going to cause further issues but eager to stop being in so much pain. 

On December 19 2023, Eli was born via caesarean seven weeks early weighing just 2.3kg. He was taken to the NICU where he recovered without a hitch

'The pain was completely unmanageable even in hospital with everything they could give me it was still bad, I can't even describe it,' she said. 

'Initially, we'd hoped I was going to be awake for the birth but that was just going to be too risky.  At that stage I had been in pain for so long couldn't wait to have surgery.'

On December 19 2023, Eli was born via caesarean seven weeks early weighing just 2.3kg. 

Mater Mothers' Hospitals' Director of Obstetrics and Gynaecology Dr Sarah Janssens, who operated on Emily, said the biggest risk to Eli was being born preterm, not the tumour. 

'Cancer rarely affects the baby or crosses the placenta – the biggest risk to the baby in utero is that the mother is unwell,' she explained.  

He was taken to the NICU where he recovered without a hitch.

During the surgery, doctors removed a soccer-ball sized tumour from Emily's ovary as well as 4kg of excess fluid.

'They underestimated the size it ended up being, they definitely didn't think it was going to be that big,' she said. 

During the surgery, doctors removed a soccer-ball sized tumour from Emily's ovary as well as 4kg of excess fluid

Two days later while she was recovering from the procedure, Emily found out tests revealed the tumour was ovarian cancer. 

'It was hard as you can imagine because we really had convinced ourselves, because we wanted it to be the case, that it was benign,' she said. 

'I found it okay, I think what I struggled with were the implications, you have this picture of what pregnancy and post-partum is going to be. We wanted more kids after Eli so there were a lot of layers to digest.

'It wasn't just that I had cancer it was, you have cancer you're not going to be able to breast feed this baby and you're probably not going to have more kids either, it was a lot to process at once.'

Mater Hospital Brisbane Gynaecological Oncologist Dr Rhett Morton said Emily's type of cancer, SCCOHT, is a very rare subtype of ovarian cancer and is most likely to affect young women.

'Of every 10,000 women diagnosed with ovarian cancer, no more than one will be diagnosed with SCCOHT,' Dr Morton said.

Emily started chemotherapy on Christmas Eve, just five days after surgery, and will continue with the treatment until April.  

'They would never normally do that, have chemo and surgery so close together, but we didn't really have a choice,' she said. 

'That was tough and the post-chemo effects of that first round were really hard especially because I was still recovering from surgery it was really not very nice.' 

Mater Cancer Care Centre Senior Medical Oncologist Dr Catherine Shannon said doctors planned to 'throw the book' at the cancer with chemotherapy and a stem cell transplant.

'The rarity of Emily's situation makes accurate prognosis very difficult, as there are only a small number of reported cases,' she said.

'The evidence we do have suggests very aggressive treatments return the best outcome and survival for the patient, hence why we're looking at a stem cell transplant, which will allow us to escalate the intensity of chemotherapy.' 

Emily is sharing her story during Ovarian Cancer Awareness Month to raise awareness of the warning signs of a disease that claims the lives of more than 1,000 Australian women each year.

'Had I not been pregnant, I would have associated the symptoms with periods – cramping, funny bowel movements – and I find that to be really scary,' she said.

'I would be encouraging any young person or young women, particularly in terms of ovarian cancer, just to take their health seriously, and if they think something's wrong, then advocate for themselves. Just don't assume that you'll be fine.'