Two women wear white dresses and smile in the photo, each clinging to a sign that reads, “My bun, her oven” with corresponding arrows.
The “bun” belongs to Allison Ardolino Dinkelacker, the “oven” to her twin sister, Mineola resident Dawn Ardolino Policastro, and the photo was one in a series for Westbury photographer Allison Maffettone.
Policastro had been carrying Dinkelacker’s baby, Maffettone explained on her Facebook page, Allison Rose Photography, after Dinkelacker’s bout with stage 3 breast cancer during a pregnancy in 2009 left her unable to bear children.
“Allison and her husband always wanted to complete their family with one more child and give their son the sibling he longed for,” Maffettone wrote.
So Policastro volunteered to be a surrogate to her sister and fulfill that wish for her nephew Dylan.
On Aug. 5, she gave birth to a baby boy, Hudson William Dinkelacker,
“We cannot thank you enough for the gift you have given us. Although biologically this child will be made up of the two of us, we certainly hope that the strength, selflessness and power you have shown are traits that he takes from you during his life,” Dinkelacker wrote on Maffettone’s Facebook page. “Not many people have the ability to make someone else’s dream come true. But you have done so, and with extraordinary thoughtfulness, openness and sensitivity.”
At 31 weeks pregnant and on the twins’ 33rd birthday in 2009, Dinklacker had an emergency cesarean section to give birth to Dylan and underwent six months of chemotherapy, 35 rounds of radiation and various surgeries.
Since the cancer was hormone positive, she could no longer safely carry children.
In her post, Dinklacker described an appointment with her oncologist, wherein “Dawn jumped in and said it doesn’t matter because I am going to carry their child.”
“You kept that promise through all the devastating highs and lows, but throughout it all, you have been constant in your optimism, support and loving care for us,” Dinklacker wrote. “When most people would have given up during the struggles we endured, you just pushed through it all.”
The photo gallery on Maffettone’s Facebook page has been liked more than 80,000 times and shared by more than 15,000 users as of Monday. More than 2,300 comments have been posted.
“I have said this before, but I have to say it again. Dawn, you amaze me!” Dinklacker wrote. “You are my hero and I have never been more proud of you. You deserve a medal of courage, of compassion and of selflessness.”
Correction: An earlier version of this story had several inaccuracies and omissions. (1) The Facebook page where Allison Ardolino Dinkelacker thanked her sister Dawn Ardolino Policastro for serving as a surrogate mother to her new son Hudson William Dinkelacker was not her own, but that of Westbury photographer Allison Maffettone. (2) Though Dinkelacker’s cancer was aggressive, there was no indication based on Facebook posts that her pregnancy with her son Dylan was jeopardized. (3) A headline for this story indicated that Dinkelacker lives in Mineola. Policastro, whose Facebook page was tagged in Maffettone’s gallery, is a Mineola resident. We regret the errors.
