Read Time: 4 Minutes
TAKEAWAYS
- Oncofertility care gave Morgan the opportunity to preserve her dream of becoming a mother while undergoing urgent cancer treatment.
- Morgan’s story highlights the power of coordinated, compassionate care and the importance of holding onto hope even in life’s most uncertain moments.
IMPACT: Through seamless collaboration between oncology, oncofertility, navigation, and surgical teams, Huntsman Cancer Institute helped Morgan move quickly from diagnosis to treatment while preserving the future she hoped for most.
Morgan Marietti remembers the moment her body asked her to listen—and how, at first, she didn’t. It was early 2020, the beginning of the pandemic and like so many others, she tried to dismiss away what she was feeling.
She thought she was living her dream. Morgan was thriving in her current role as the first coach of the new University of Utah women's American Collegiate Hockey Association team while simultaneously working full time, raising a puppy, and training for a 100-mile Fit2Be Cancer Free challenge. She felt her discomfort was part of the process—something to push through. But by August, the pain changed and became impossible to ignore. Then, one day, while at work she went to clear her throat and instead coughed up blood. In that instant, everything became clear. Something was wrong and it was time to listen.
Just days earlier, Morgan and her partner Beau had been deep in discussion about starting a family, imagining a future that felt full of possibility.
She has a background in health promotion and education and saw this as an opportunity to check in with her primary care physician through both lenses.
Morgan scheduled a visit with her primary care provider as an annual physical where she put off describing her symptoms until the very end of the visit as she wasn't feeling symptomatic at the time. Thankfully, before they parted ways her physician connected the pieces and ordered a chest CT scan, which revealed a 10-centimeter mass in her lung. A late Friday evening phone call shook both Morgan and her provider.
Referrals were made and a biopsy confirmed what no one expects to hear: synovial sarcoma.
Now, sitting in a cancer hospital, that vision of starting a family seemed to collapse all at once. “I thought I was going to be creating a life,” she says. “But now I had to fight for mine.” And yet, even in that moment, hope didn’t disappear. It existed right alongside the fear. “Despite it all, I still knew that I wanted to be a parent someday and there I was holding devastation and hope at the same time.”
Treatment needed to begin quickly, but so did another conversation—one about preserving her chance to have children. Oncofertility became part of her care almost immediately.
Morgan understood just enough from her role at work to know how important that preservation window was, but living it was something else entirely.
She and her partner had just seven days to undergo the entire oncofertility preservation process, all while preparing for inpatient chemotherapy. It was a whirlwind. It also reinforced something she carries with her now: the importance of staying connected to your heart despite the chaos and simply taking the next step, then the next.
“There were countless reasons why this dream could've been taken away from us. Yet there we were keeping it as our north star, and our care team was doing just the same.”
Her care team moved just as quickly, coordinating across specialties to make it possible. Her oncologist, Anna Chalmers, MD, and oncofertility specialist, Joseph Letourneau, MD, helped guide her through complex decisions, while navigator Denise Fournier ensured everything stayed on track—appointments, medications, timing. She described Denise as “a true angel helping us to not only trust but to believe that we would indeed become parents someday. She took care of everything nitty gritty, we simply stayed focus on the fertility shots and extraction process, allowing us to even remember the importance of laughter and teamwork despite it all.” Additionally, Dr. Letourneau explained the process in hockey terms to Morgan and Beau, translating something clinical into something familiar to them both.
There wasn’t much time to process the emotional weight of what was happening. “Everything went so fast, I didn’t have time to think about anything being hard or challenging, instead we knew the next step, remained hopeful, and knew more would be revealed with time.” Step by step, she kept moving forward, trusting the people around her and the path in front of her.
By the time her birthday arrived in September 2020, about a month after being diagnosed, she had already reached a milestone that meant everything—extraction day. She woke up early for the procedure and before leaving home she and Beau sat down and read “Today I'll Be Fierce,” a children's book gifted to them by a dear friend who creatively helped them to find joy in the journey with its multiple meanings within. This intentional act and the message of being fierce set the tone for the day. That same day, she underwent her first round of inpatient chemotherapy—a moment that captured the duality of it all. In her body, there was both the fight for her life and the preservation of a future one. In her spirit remained a girl with a dream.
The months that followed were defined by endurance, a skill she had mastered in the rink. Five rounds of inpatient chemotherapy, each lasting three to four days, stretched across four months. Then came surgery at the end of January 2021 to remove the tumor completely—an upper lobe resection that allowed her to keep her lung. Another small victory.
Over time, appointments began to carry less fear and more possibility. After two years of remission and the support of her oncology and oncofertility teams, Morgan and Beau made the decision they had been holding onto since the beginning. They implanted one of their embryos, stepping into a hereafter they had hoped for.
Now, five years in remission and having just celebrated her second Mother’s Day, Morgan reflects.
“Being a mother is the ultimate gift this journey has given me,” she says. “It’s been my deepest uncovering and greatest work since ending treatment.” In naming her son Lux—a name tied to light—Morgan found herself reflecting on the light within, and on how cancer, in an unexpected way, helped her uncover that gift in herself.
It is her hope that no matter where life leads him, Lux will always know that his own light can be found within, too—and that perhaps those who read her story might be reminded of the same thing.
