“There is not a single thing I’d ever change about her, except her diaper.”
Suze Lopez went to the doctor for one thing — but came out of it with the surprise of a lifetime.
The 41-year-old nurse from Bakersfield, California had been living with a 22-pound ovarian cyst for years before finally seeing a group of doctors at Cedars-Sinai in Los Angeles to have it surgically removed.
As is standard practice, the doctors had Lopez undergo a pregnancy test prior to surgery.
When the test came back positive, Lopez and doctors alike figured it was a false positive — especially since she and her husband had been trying for a second child for nearly 17 years with no luck.
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But it wasn’t a false positive. Instead, Lopez was, in fact, pregnant with her second baby.
It wasn’t until three days later, when Lopez was admitted into the hospital with high blood pressure and pain in her abdomen, that her surprise pregnancy story took another unexpected turn.
Thanks to diagnostic images, doctors quickly learned that Lopez’s uterus was empty.
“We then discovered a nearly full-term baby boy in a small space in the abdomen, near the liver, with his butt resting on the uterus,” said Dr. John Ozimek, medical director of Labor and Delivery, in a blog post.
“A pregnancy this far outside the uterus that continues to develop is almost unheard of,” he added.
This type of pregnancy, known as an abdominal ectopic pregnancy, is very rare — but the fact that Lopez also had a 22-pound ovarian tumor growing alongside it made it that much more unique and complex.
“It makes sense that she just thought the tumor was getting bigger again, not that she could be pregnant,” Ozimek said, according to Cedars-Sinai.
Lopez’s abdominal pregnancy came with a double happy ending
According to reports, 30 specialists were needed to successfully deliver the baby as doctors hoped to remove the giant cyst that had been growing in or on Lopez’s ovaries for years.
First, the team of doctors lifted the cyst out of the way in order to deliver the baby. Then, they removed the cyst.
“As soon as the baby was delivered, Lopez started hemorrhaging badly. We were a specially trained team of obstetric anesthesiologists and well prepared, but it was still intense,” said Michael Sanchez, MD.
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Despite the high risk, Lopez’s baby weighed a healthy 8 pounds and already a head full of hair.
He remained on a breathing tube for one day and spent two weeks in the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) before being deemed healthy enough for survival.
“He defied all the odds,” Sara Dyanim, MD, a neonatologist with Cedars-Sinai Guerin Children’s, said.
Lopez and her husband, Andrew, ended up naming the baby Ryu Jesse — adding that they chose the middle name Jesse because it means “gift from God.”
“He is our gift. And Ryu and Suze are my miracles,” Andrew said of his baby and one of his wife’s nurses.
“They let me in the operating room, and it was tough to watch what she was going through, and amazing to see Ryu delivered. So yes, many prayers have been answered,” he added.
As for Lopez, the successful ectopic pregnancy surgery gave her a new appreciation for life.
“I appreciate every little thing. Everything. Every day is a gift and I’m never going to waste it,” Lopez said.
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“God gave me this baby so that he could be an example to the world that God exists—that miracles, modern-day miracles, do happen,” she added.
