'Dream Baby' Made Possible After a Sister Gave Her Twin with Cancer the 'Beautiful' Gift of Surrogacy

Cathey Stoner has more than earned the title of “Best Aunt"after giving birthto her new nephew, John Ryder Sharp.

What had started as a quick joke between twin siblings became reality when Stoner’s sister, Sarah Sharp, 33, was diagnosed with choriocarcinoma, a rare and aggressive form of cancer in the uterus, they tell PEOPLE. Doctors first found it in 2018, nine months after Sharp gave birth to her first child, daughter Charlotte, now 4, after she began experiencing severe uterine bleeding. Doctors told Sharp she may need a hysterectomy, and Stoner told her: “If they take your uterus, I’ll have your babies!”

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“I was broken,” Sharp says of the news. “My husband [Richard] and I had to grieve what we thought life would look like.”

(L-R) Cathey Stoner and Sarah Sharp.katelyn brown

By that point, Stoner and her husband Alex had seriously discussed making what had been a joke a true promise.

“We walked with Sarah and Richard through some dark days,” Stoner says. “We didn’t know if she was going to live at one point. We wanted to give them this hopeful thing. We felt called.”

(L-R) Cathey Stoner and Sarah Sharp.Courtesy Cathey Stoner and Sarah Sharp

When Stoner told Sharp that “if you want to grow your family, I would love to do that,” Sharp says that it was “the biggest act of love I’ve ever received — pure, unconditional love.”

For more on the twin sisters and their path to surrogacy, pick up a copy of PEOPLE, on newsstands Friday

Stoner did wonder what her kids would think of her growing stomach that would soon produce their cousin, not a sibling.

And Stoner says that she didn’t have too much trouble with the idea that she wasn’t carrying her own child.

“It was a whirlwind of emotions,” says Sharp. “He came from my sister, but I could tell he was mine.”

Stoner had wondered if she would feel an urge to reach for him, “but I didn’t,” she says. “I felt very proud of him, but he feels like theirs. He definitely looks like them.”

The Stoner (left) and Sharp families.Katelyn Brown

After the umbilical cord was cut, Sharp held him against her skin and whispered to her son, “I love you. We’ve prayed for you. We’re so happy you’re here,” before telling her sister, “Thank you, thank you, thank you.”

“I haven’t had much sleep because I just watch him; I still cry when I look at his face,” she says. “When something terrible happens, it can feel like that’s the end. But life can surprise you. John Ryder is such a representation of hope and that life can be better again.”

Eileen Finan

andWendy Grossman Kantor

Wendy Grossman Kantor

source: people.com