Pregnant mom with cancer sacrifices her life to save her unborn twins

Jamie Snider smiles before she delivered her twins, shown at right.(Screenshots/ABC 30)

Faced with a life-and-death choice, a heroic mother afflicted with cervical cancer chose to keep alive her unborn twins at her own health's expense.

On Thursday, Jamie Snider, 30, from Fresno, California delivered her twins at Stanford's Lucille Packard Children's Hospital in Palo Alto, but passed away a day later due to heart failure, ABC 7 reported. But before she breathed her last, she was still able to hold her newborn babies named Nico and Camila, the news outlet added.

"She got to lay with them, hug them, and spend some time with them. She passed away the next morning," said Snider's brother Chris.

He said he was with his sister in the delivery room moments before she delivered the twins.

Snider was diagnosed with cervical cancer last year but was able to beat it, or so she and her doctors thought.

When she became pregnant that same year, she was told the cancer had returned.

"They couldn't give her too much chemo because it would affect the development of the babies," said Chris. "She made sure, she made sure those babies would live. She traded her life."

Apparently unmindful of what would befall her hours later, Snider even posted on Facebook a picture of herself right before the delivery, with the caption: "Tomorrow will be a great day. God has been on my side the whole time. All the prayers and love have kept me going as well. Wish me luck. I'm having a C-section keeping me positive through all the hard times." The post was apparently removed after she died.

Aside from her twins, Snider is survived by two other daughters, one of whom thought she saw her mother's face in the clouds the day after her remains were cremated.

The daughter spotted a cloud formation that resembled the face of her mom, smiling and watching over them, according to ABC 7.

"Maybe she's in the clouds," her daughter said.

To raise money for Snider's four children and funeral expenses, her friends have set up at least two different GoFundMe pages—the one for the memorial service and the other for the donations for her two older daughters. A third GoFundMe page is reportedly being set up for the expenses incurred for her newborn twins. So far, the campaign has raised almost $40,000 of the $80,000 they have requested, according to Faithwire.