A Joyful Birth Turns Into a Medical Emergency

Tatiana Schlossberg shared that the disease was discovered shortly after she welcomed her second child. She recounted that her daughter was born on May 25, 2024, at 7:05 a.m., just minutes after she reached Columbia-Presbyterian Hospital in New York.

She and her husband, George Moran, spent those first moments holding their newborn, taking in her arrival and the sense of newness she brought. A few hours went by before her doctor detected an unusual imbalance in her white blood cell count.

The doctor informed Schlossberg that her bloodwork showed troubling results. While a typical white blood cell count ranges from about 4 to 11,000 cells per microliter, hers had risen to an alarming 130,000, prompting immediate concern.

Moran, who was working as a urology resident at the time, reached out to friends in primary care and obstetrics for guidance. Most believed the situation was likely connected to the pregnancy or the delivery.

Her doctor agreed with the assessment of Moran’s friends, but also noted that leukemia was a possibility. Schlossberg dismissed the concern at the time, telling Moran, “It’s not leukemia,” and wondering, “What are they talking about?”

As everything was going on, Schlossberg’s parents, Caroline Kennedy and Edwin Schlossberg, had brought her two-year-old son to the hospital so he could meet his newborn sister. However, plans shifted quickly as she was moved to a different floor.

Her daughter was taken to the nursery, and her son resisted leaving, wanting to pretend he was steering her hospital bed like a bus. She parted ways with him and her parents before being taken away for further evaluation.

A Rare Disease for Someone So Young

Schlossberg found it impossible to accept the diagnosis. An active lifestyle had been central to her life as she regularly ran five to ten miles in Central Park. She once swam three miles across the Hudson River to raise funds for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society.

Additionally, as an environmental journalist, she even skied the Birkebeiner, a grueling 50km cross-country race in Wisconsin that took over seven hours.

“I loved to have people over for dinner and to make cakes for my friends’ birthdays. I went to museums and plays and got to jump in a cranberry bog for my job. I had a son whom I loved more than anything and a newborn I needed to take care of. This could not possibly be my life,” she said.

Chemotherapy, Transplants, and Unimaginable Pain

After diagnosis, Schlossberg embarked on a grueling treatment. “I could not be cured by a standard course of treatment. I would need a few months, at least, of chemotherapy, which would aim to reduce the number of blast cells in my bone marrow. (Blast cells are immature blood cells; a high count can be a sign of leukemia),” she shared.

Schlossberg added, “Then I would need a bone-marrow transplant, which could cure me. After the transplant, I would probably need more chemotherapy, on a regular basis, to try to prevent the cancer from returning.”

The mom of two spent five weeks at Columbia-Presbyterian Hospital following the birth of her daughter before being moved to Memorial Sloan Kettering for further treatment. Over the course of her illness, she underwent two bone marrow transplants.

For the first one, her sister was a compatible donor and provided the stem cells. After returning home, she continued chemotherapy but eventually experienced a relapse.

By January 2025, she enrolled in a clinical trial for CAR-T cell therapy, a type of immunotherapy that targets certain blood cancers. For the second transplant, an unrelated donor was chosen, with the rationale that cells genetically distinct from hers and her sister’s might better combat the cancer.

The donor was a man in his 20s from the Pacific Northwest. Though she knew little else about him, Schlossberg imagined him perhaps as a Portland woodcutter or a Seattle tech worker, and wished she could express her gratitude.

A Mother’s Worst Fear: Will Her Children Remember Her?

The second bone transplant brought her into remission, but the cancer returned once more. She participated in another clinical trial, during which her doctor indicated that her life expectancy might be limited to about a year.

“My first thought was that my kids, whose faces live permanently on the inside of my eyelids, wouldn’t remember me. My son might have a few memories, but he’ll probably start confusing them with pictures he sees or stories he hears,” Schlossberg acknowledged.

She also reflected on how little time she was able to spend caring for her daughter. The journalist was unable to handle basic tasks like diaper changes, baths, or feedings because of the infection risks that followed her transplants.

She was away for nearly half of her daughter’s first year. “I don’t know who, really, she thinks I am, and whether she will feel or remember, when I am gone, that I am her mother,” Schlossberg noted.

Today, Schlossberg explained that she focuses on spending meaningful time with her family. She acknowledged that staying present is difficult, but she is allowing herself to experience memories as they come.

When she looks at her son, she tries to lock in as many memories as possible — moments like him struggling to say difficult words or the small gestures of comfort and understanding he offers.

She recalls the first time she came home from the hospital, with him entering the bathroom and saying, “It’s so nice to meet you in here.” Meanwhile, her daughter is a whirlwind of energy.

She has curly red hair that catches the light like fire and squints and grins with a gap-toothed smile after sipping seltzer. She also stomps through the house in bright yellow rain boots, pretending to talk on her grandmother’s phone with a string of pearls around her neck.

Schlossberg’s daughter does this often without pants, giggling as she darts away from anyone trying to catch her. She even finds ways to bring music into playtime, picking up a portable speaker and signaling for them to play her favorite songs.

As she continues battling cancer, Schlossberg makes a point of reminding her son that she is a writer who focuses on the planet. She emphasized that her identity is not defined solely by her illness.