She was 29 weeks pregnant, packing a hospital bag for a second son, when the diagnosis arrived.

Not a scare. Not a “let’s watch it.”
Stage IV breast cancer.

Kiersten Rapplean, a 32-year-old mother from Missouri, was told she had HER2-positive inflammatory invasive ductal carcinoma — an aggressive form that does not wait. Waiting until after delivery was not an option. So doctors began treating two patients at once: the woman in the chair, and the baby still growing inside her.

She completed two rounds of AC chemotherapy while pregnant.

On March 25, at 36 weeks and one day — one day after her own birthday — doctors induced labor. Travis arrived at 6 pounds, 8 ounces. He needed extra lung support and spent 17 days in the NICU. The day after he was born, Kiersten finally had the scans that pregnancy had postponed. Three days after giving birth, with her newborn still in intensive care, she started targeted treatment.

There was almost no pause between becoming a mother again and becoming a patient again.

By June she had finished five rounds of TCHP chemotherapy. On July 11 she underwent a double mastectomy. Later reports also described brain radiation after tumors were found. She kept going back for infusions. She kept saying the same quiet thing: she wanted more birthdays. More bedtime stories. More ordinary days with her two boys, Emmett and Travis.

Travis went home healthy.

And in July 2026, local news in Missouri reported a sentence that once sounded impossible:

Kiersten was cancer-free.

With stage IV disease, monitoring can still be part of life. That does not make the milestone smaller. In one pregnancy she was preparing to deliver a child and fighting to stay alive long enough to raise him.

She asked for something simple.
She is still here to keep asking for it.

Sources

Kiersten Rapplean, GoFundMe, “Support Kiersten Rapplean’s Fight Against Breast Cancer” (patient account of diagnosis at 29 weeks, AC chemo in pregnancy, induction on March 25 at 36 weeks + 1 day, Travis 6 lbs 8 oz, 17 days in NICU, scans the next day, targeted therapy three days after birth, five rounds of TCHP by June, double mastectomy on July 11).