Love Is Blind's Shaina Hurley Was Diagnosed with Cancer While 3 Months Pregnant: 'Nothing Was Going to Stop Me' (Exclusive) liennhi

Shaina Hurley was just a few months pregnant with her "miracle" baby when she got the news that would turn her world upside down: she had cervical cancer.

In an exclusive interview with PEOPLE, the Love Is Blind star opens up publicly about how she confronted the news — and how trusting her instincts helped her through a tumultuous pregnancy that ultimately resulted in the birth of her healthy baby boy.

As of June 2024, Hurley is cancer-free, telling PEOPLE, "I am on the other side now."

On the other side, and finally ready to tell her story.

Hurley welcomed her first baby, a son named Yiorgos David, with husband Christos Lardakis, on Monday, Feb. 1, she previously shared exclusively with PEOPLE.

But the road to her delivery was a long one wrapped in joy, fear and uncertainty following a routine, eight-week pap smear.

"I had no symptoms," Hurley explains in a recent interview. "But later, the doctor called me and said the pap smear results had come back as abnormal and they needed to get me in for a colposcopy."

About a month later, she underwent the procedure, with a doctor telling her "right away, 'It's not looking good.'"

After the test was sent off to Northwestern, doctors were able to confirm one day later that she had Stage 2 cervical cancer.

"I felt the fear creeping in but I knew then and there, I can't let the enemy take over my mind. I can't go down that dark hole," Hurley says. "I had to go into survival mode and tell God, 'I trust you.' I just prayed for the best, at the end of the day."

Doctors were pressing Hurley to undergo a cold-knife conization, a procedure which would allow them to see how far the cancer had spread and to get rid of as much of it as they could.

But the procedure — which entails removing a cone-shaped piece of tissue from the cervix — came with risks.

"The problem is, I was pregnant. [The] cervix is what holds pregnancy. I was at just around three months and so I would most likely lose the baby," Hurley says. "At that point, I just couldn't risk it."

The next alternative, with Hurley at 22 weeks pregnant, was to perform a laparoscopic surgery to ensure the cancer had not spread to the lymph nodes.

"It hadn't spread to the lymph nodes but they were still wanting to do chemotherapy," Hurley says. "I still had no symptoms, so I did deny chemotherapy. It was hard for the doctors because I was their patient first. And I was a tough patient."

Over the next few weeks, Hurley says she acted both as an advocate for herself and her baby, denying doctors when they suggested she deliver at 32 weeks, which would allow them to see if the cancer had changed or spread.

"I felt it was too early," she says. "I took the risk and pushed it to 37-and-a-half weeks and delivered a healthy baby boy."

And while her delivery was without any major complications, she says her friends and family were worried.

"I don't think my husband and I ever had stronger battles in our marriage," she says. "He wanted the baby but he would also say, 'Shaina, I don't want to lose my wife. I want you to be here to raise the baby.'"

She adds: "My faith and my strong will kicked in and there was no other way I was going to do it, We had a miscarriage before Yiorgos and so when I finally got a healthy pregnancy, nothing was going to stop me. But it did put a gray cloud over it."

While doctors did take biopsies during her C-section, Hurley wasn't out of the woods just yet. In fact, two weeks after she gave birth, she had a mini-stroke (TIA).

"I was feeding my son and my hands went numb and then it shot down the left side of my body. My face drooped, I wasn't making sense," she describes.

She recovered from the mini-stroke without any major side effects and then, four weeks later, she underwent the cold knife conization that doctors had been urging her to get for months — but it was unsuccessful.

"They did the surgery, waited two weeks, and it didn't work," Hurley says. "The cancer was still in there."

Six weeks later, she underwent another cold knife conization and, two weeks after that, received the words she had prayed for: "As of June, I'm finally cancer-free."

For the next few years, she will go to the doctor every three months for check-ups. "We have to wait a year officially from the last surgery, just to make sure my body is okay," she says, "but we do want more babies."

She continues: "For now, I'm focusing on being a mom and taking it day by day."

Part of that day-by-day includes reconnecting with old cast mates — like Love Is Blind season 3's Zanab Jaffrey, who recently visited Hurley in Chicago.

"I did kind of isolate myself to protect my own mental health but I opened up to Zanab and she's been checking up on me," Hurley says.

Hurley adds that she's purposely shied away from speaking about her cancer publicly, choosing instead to stay strong, and silent.

"My strength came from my relationship with the Lord," she says. "On this earth, we do suffer. But it's how we suffer that's the real test. If it wasn't for my relationship with God, I don't think I would have had the strength."

She adds that she wouldn't even say the word "cancer" during or after her pregnancy — until it was out of her body.

Now, though, she views the journey as one of strength. So much so that, in a gala that she and her husband are co-chairing on Nov. 2, she'll deliver remarks about her cancer publicly.

"I'll be giving a speech with my testimony and we'll be raising money for more cancer research. It's a new journey for sure — a different life," she says. "And it made me stronger."