Pride of Australia: Cancer mum Michelle Buchholtz’s ‘miracle’ baby Ava is thriving

LOOKING at baby Ava and her chubby cheeks, it’s hard to believe she came into the world so frail. Terminally ill mum Michelle Buchholtz had to give birth early in a fight to stay alive.

Pride of Aus - Michelle Buchholtz

LOOKING at baby Ava and her chubby cheeks, it’s hard to believe she came into the world so frail.

The tiny girl born at 29 weeks is now seven months old and hasn’t been sick one day of her young life. She’s never even had a sniffle.

For terminally ill mum Michelle Buchholtz, forced to give birth early in a fight to stay alive, it’s hard to describe the feeling of watching her baby grow stronger as she becomes weaker.

”Bittersweet,” she says. “That sums it up well.”

Michelle recalls a good day not long ago, a day without pain despite the tumours riddled through her hips and along the length of her spine.

She took Ava in the pram for a walk to a local cafe and sat next to a young mum with her seven-year-old daughter.

“I thought, I hope I get to see Ava for that long,” she says. “There’s always that flip side.”

Michelle finished a bout of chemotherapy in April.

Fractures caused by ­tumours along her spine are healing so she no longer has to wear a restrictive neck brace every minute of the day.
She is using pain killers to delay the next chemotherapy treatment, which is planned to be her last.

EDITORIAL: MOTHER COURAGE

Between cancer treatments and learning the ropes as new parents, some days are harder than others for ­Michelle and fiance Alex ­Ansalone. But they cherish every one of them, thankful that their baby came into the world at all, born weighing just 1053g.

It’s nothing short of a miracle, they say, that Ava grew inside Michelle so healthy when her mum was so ­diseased.

Michelle has days when she can’t get out of bed.

Sometimes the nerve pain that shoots down her legs is so bad she can’t sleep.

Yet, she sits on the couch at her family’s McKinnon home with a smile and thoughts of hope.

Alex says he doesn’t know anybody more positive than Michelle — that’s why he’s nominated her for the Courage Medal in the Pride of Australia awards.

“A lot of people would mentally, emotionally and physically shut down,” he says. “I think because of ­Michelle being the way she is, it actually makes my job as carer, partner and father to Ava so much easier.”

Michelle doesn’t know which day will eventually be her last.

But that doesn’t shake her spirit. Because every day she is here, it’s another day she can spend with her “little ­miracle”.

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