Influencer Whose Husband Died of Cancer 41 Days After Daughter’s Birth Addresses ‘Selfish’ Criticism

Shay Martin and husband Tanner chronicled his battle with stage 4 colorectal cancer following his 2020 diagnosis. In 2023, they learned his condition was terminal and he only had 2-5 years to live. Following Tanner’s death this past June, Martin appeared on The Unplanned Podcast with Matt and Abby Howard this week to talk more about their journey.

Per Martin, Tanner had already banked his sperm in 2020, before starting chemotherapy, at the suggestion of his doctor. They used it to create 12 embryos — six boys and six girls — with the pair initially hoping to do an embryo transfer in 2023. When Tanner got sepsis, however, they put that on pause — with Martin saying she thought at the time, “I do not want to have a newborn and have my husband on hospice care.”

In 2024, however, Martin revealed that Tanner was on a treatment in 2024 that appeared to be working and his “cancer numbers were going down” — something they thought would give him a little more time. “So in July 2024, we were like, okay, I think we’re going to try to have a baby. Tanner’s oncologist at the time same you could be on this treatment for years and it work,” she explained.

Though they both knew he was going to die, they “didn’t know how long” they had.

“At that point, in 2024, by the time she was going to be born, it would have been 2 years from the time they gave us the timeframe of 2-5 years. So we were like, okay, we could have 3 years together,” she shared. “You never really know with caner.”

They did the embryo transfer with one of the girls, with Martin explaining they decided to have a daughter, in part, for her “selfish” reasons of wanting to have “a little best friend” she could dress up. She said they also did research and found some troubling statistics about kids who didn’t grow up with same-gendered parents — while also noting there are also plenty of children who grow up just fine without a parent of the same gender.

As for people who thought it was “so selfish to bring a child into the world when you know the parent’s going to die,” Martin shared her thoughts on them too.

“I thought, these people are probably hurt people, maybe they grew up with a single parent, so why would you knowingly put a child in that scenario? That was my thought,” she shared. “Maybe they’re just a hurt person. I knew I have a lot of love to give [daughter] AmyLou, Tanner’s family, my family, and Tanner, even if he’s not on his earth, we all have a lot of love to give her, so I know she’s going to be okay.”

Martin then explained that once they were pregnant, the treatment they thought would give them more time “stopped working, so we knew it was going to be shorter than that.” The pair welcomed daughter AmyLou in May 15, 2025, 41 days before Tanner’s death 41 days later on June 25, 2025.

On The Unplanned Podcast, Martin said she and tanner had the conversation about her using the additional embryos after his death “numerous times,” always coming to the same conclusion.

“He’s said, if you feel like you want to use the embryos later in life, Im okay with that. If you feel like you don’t want to, I’m okay with that too,” she said, adding, “I don’t know what the future holds for me. For now, I pay for them every month, to keep them alive. It’s $85 a month.”

She also discussed whether the two ever talked about her remarrying someday.

“We have the goofy Tanner and then the serious, very sweet Tanner. Serious-very-sweet Tanner is like, ‘I don’t want you to be alone for the rest of your life. I want you to find someone to love and that will love you in this life,'” she told the Howards. “Goofy Tanner would say — and he did say — ‘Yeah, you can remarry, but he has to sleep at the foot of the bed. 1000% that is a direct quote from Tanner.”

As for what remarrying would mean about her and Tanner’s side-by-side burial plot, which already has both of their names on it, she added: “I cannot tell you the amount of times I’ve gotten the comment, ‘What if you remarry?’ And my answer is, ‘Well, I want to be cremated, so they can split my ashes. I don’t care.”