JACKSONVILLE, Fla., Sept. 8 (UPI) -- A Florida woman who was a medical first when she had a child conceived from an egg frozen after she was diagnosed with cancer has died of the disease.
Jennifer Verstandig Rutansky, 39, of Jacksonville survived for 13 years with Hodgkin's lymphoma, the Florida Times-Union reported. During that time, she married, adopted a daughter and gave birth to a son.
She died Sunday.
Rutansky was still single when she learned she had cancer. She was reluctant to get chemotherapy because she hoped to have children, and her sister, a pediatrician, suggested harvesting eggs and storing them.
Jacob Evan Rutansky was born in 2005. While he was biologically his parents' child, he was carried by a surrogate because cancer treatments had damaged his mother's uterus.
"That this happened is phenomenal," she said in a 2006 interview with the Times-Union. "It gives hope and strength to other women, that's all I care about. The fact that we are the first is lost on me."
Rutansky and her husband, Joe, adopted a daughter, Elizabeth, shortly before their son was born. She called them her "two miracles."
