“Every Second Matters Now”: Tanner Martin Pauses Chemo to Embrace Fatherhood as Clock Ticks Toward Birth of His First Child

After five years of battling colon cancer, Tanner Martin makes the most courageous decision of all — not to fight harder, but to hold tighter. As he pauses treatment to welcome his baby girl into the world, love and mortality collide in one of the year’s most moving stories.

June 28, 2025 — In a quiet, sunlit room filled with baby clothes, monitors, and moments that feel almost too fragile to touch, Tanner Martin is preparing for the most important role of his life. And, for one rare week, cancer isn’t calling the shots.

He’s spent nearly five years in an all-out war against stage 4 colon cancer — a war that stole his energy, weakened his voice, and put his future on an unforgiving countdown. But this week, that countdown has a new focus: the arrival of his baby girl.

“I stop chemo tomorrow,” he said in a raspy Instagram video that now has over two million views. “Not forever — just for a week. But every second matters now.”

There’s no dramatic music, no hospital gurneys, no tears. Just a tired 29-year-old man, holding two tiny baby slippers in his hands, pretending they’re walking toward something only he and his wife Shay fully understand.

A Love Tested by Time — and Mortality

Tanner and Shay Martin met young, married even younger, and have spent the majority of their marriage in survival mode. Diagnosed in November 2020 at just 25, Tanner’s cancer returned aggressively after initial treatment, leading to the devastating news in 2023 that his condition was terminal. Doctors gave him two to five years. But he kept going.

“We had to ask questions most couples our age never consider,” Shay said in an earlier interview. “Like — if we have a child, and he’s not here in five years, what does that look like? How do we make sure our daughter knows who her father really is?”

They spent two years weighing that decision. Not because they doubted their love. But because they understood its cost.

IVF, Fear, and Choosing Hope Anyway

After careful deliberation and rounds of IVF, the couple finally said yes to the terrifying, beautiful unknown. Their child is due May 17 — a date they’ve circled on their calendar not with dread, but with reverence.

“In a way, it gave my life a second chapter,” Tanner said. “Even if I don’t get to see it all.”

He’s fully aware he may not live to see his daughter graduate high school. But he’s also made peace with that. What he can do — what he is doing — is making sure she will know him.

Through letters. Through voice recordings. Through books and bracelets. Through laughter caught on video and lullabies hummed into baby monitors. Through one memory at a time.

“I Just Want to Be Present When She Arrives”

In his now-viral video, Tanner shares a detail most people wouldn’t even think twice about: “The chemo makes me hoarse,” he says, voice gravelly. “I don’t sound like myself anymore.”

And that’s why he’s stepping away from treatment — just briefly. Not to rest. Not to escape. But to show up.

“I don’t want to meet my daughter with an IV in my arm,” he explained. “I want to hold her. Talk to her. Tell her I love her — with my voice, not the voice cancer gives me.”

Planning for a Future He Might Not Get to See

For Tanner, fatherhood is not a promise of time — it’s a promise of presence. He and Shay have documented their journey not for fame or clicks, but because they want their daughter to have a library of proof: your father loved you, long before you arrived.

They’ve talked openly about the things no one wants to say aloud. The possibility that she’ll grow up in a single-parent household. The grief Shay may carry. The questions their daughter may one day ask.

“And that’s what scares me,” Tanner once admitted. “Not the dying part — the missing part.”

They’ve made plans for male role models in her life. Shay’s brother has agreed to step up. They’ve built a community of love, faith, and intention — brick by brick, knowing any one of them could be the last.

“I Was Always Meant to Be a Dad”

That’s what he said in a recent clip, choking back tears. “Even with cancer, even with the odds, I never stopped wanting this.”

In another video, Tanner opens a mailed package containing a keepsake for his daughter: a matching bracelet and a book titled Forever With You. As he holds the bracelet to the camera, his voice cracks.

“She’ll know,” he says softly. “She’ll know I was here.”

When Strength Isn’t Fighting — But Letting Go

Most stories about terminal illness focus on the fight — the chemo, the surgeries, the survival rates. But Tanner’s story is different. He’s still fighting, yes. But he’s also choosing something that takes even more courage: to pause, to be present, and to feel it all.

He knows what the statistics say. But he also knows something science can’t measure: the legacy a father leaves behind doesn’t depend on years — it depends on love.

And Tanner Martin has that in abundance.

A Moment Bigger Than Cancer

As the countdown to birth begins, Tanner and Shay are surrounded not by silence, but by an online family that spans the globe. Messages pour in daily: prayers, videos, stories from other cancer warriors and new dads alike.

“He’s teaching us how to live,” one comment reads. “Not in years. But in moments.”

Another follower wrote, “I watched this video and cried in the middle of my office. That’s not a man giving up. That’s a man showing up — and it changed me.”