A New York City mom who chose to continue carrying her child rather than fight a reoccurring cancer tumor has died just weeks after giving birth to a healthy baby girl.
And to honor the courage of Elizabeth Joice, 36, her husband has shared the story of a woman who gave up everything to be a mom, if only for a moment.
Born in Montclair, New Jersey, Liz - as she was known - was fiercely independent from the get-go, following the death of her mother and subsequent disappearance of her father.
A real estate agent, she had been dating her boyfriend Max for two years when, in September 2010, doctors called to say they had found some suspicious growths in her lungs.
Liz strapped on her boxing gloves and started punching through the wall of her Upper East Side apartment.
She turned around to find Max standing behind her, and said to him that, should the MRI determine anything 'serious', she was not going to fight.
'If this is going to be bad, I'm not going to do anything,' she recalled in an interview in early 2013.
'I'm just going to cash it all in and go partying and call it a day.'
Max ran into the kitchen and started fumbling around, with Liz thinking: 'This is the worst possible time for you to go and get food.'
But he returned 45 seconds later and got down on bended knee, producing an engagement ring he had fashioned out of tin foil.
'I said, ''You don't have the option not to fight'' and proposed to her then,' Max told The New York Post.
'We got married a month later.'
Liz was diagnosed with a Sarcoma.
She endured four rounds of chemotherapy, a surgery and even more chemo to make sure the tumor was eradicated.
She was declared cancer-free for three years but still longed to have a baby, even though doctors strongly advised against it.
Undeterred, the couple moved to Roosevelt Island - a narrow island in the East River between Manhattan and Queens - in June 2013 to prepare to raise a family.
Within days, Liz discovered she was pregnant.
'I totally blew a gasket,' Max told The Post.
'They said there was no chance this was happening — and here it was happening.'
But only a month later, they received the most terrible news: the tumor was back.
Doctors removed the mass with another surgery, but because she was pregnant, Liz couldn't undergo full-body MRI scans, so her oncologist couldn't see whether the cancer was growing.
Her due date was set for March 4, but doctors couldn't wait that long.
In January, a surgeon performed a C-section and Lily Anne Joice was safely brought into the world.
However Liz's health almost immediately declined as her cancer spread, with tumors invading her right lung, heart and abdomen.
'We said our goodbyes,' Max said.
'It was like something out of a movie. We sat there and cried. We tried to tell stories, talk about all the great things.'
'Liz came home five days after Lily was born,' Max said.
'That one night at home was all we had.'
Liz was so sick she needed to return to hospital, sister-in-law Judith Joice said.
'For the next six weeks, she fought,' Judith said.
'With so much to live for, she fought harder than her doctors had ever seen someone fight, overcoming the odds to spend just one more day with Lily and Max. And another. Then another.
'But the struggle could only last for so long.
'Liz had given it all she had, but could not fight anymore.'
Elizabeth died on March 9.
'Liz had this way about her,' Max said.
'She had this positive energy that made you want to be the best version of yourself. She was intolerant of self-pity.'
'Liz's magic rubbed off on Lily,' Max said.
'She's beautiful and remarkable. It provides me with the strength to get through this.'
A fundraiser has been set up on website You Caring in order to help the single father and little Lily, with the hopes of getting $50,000.
So far almost $9,000 has already been raised.
A documentary called 40 Weeks, directed by Christopher Henze, will also soon be released about the Joice's journey.
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