When 41-year-old Suze Lopez gave birth to her second child at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, she described him as a miracle.
Suze and her husband, Andrew, had been trying for nearly 20 years to have a second child. But they never could’ve expected that Suze would discover her son was growing outside of her uterus, behind a 22-pound mass in her ovary.
The pregnancy was complicated, but in the end, Suze delivered a healthy baby boy, according to a press release from Cedars-Sinai Medical Center. They named him Ryu Jesse Lopez, noting that his middle name means “gift from God.”
“He is our gift. And Ryu and Suze are my miracles,” Andrew said in a statement. “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.”
Ryu was born on August 18 at 41 weeks, weighing 8 pounds and 6 ounces, SFGATE reports.
Now, SFGATE reports that both Ryu and Suze are healthy and enjoying the holiday season at home. But the road to get there was difficult, according to Cedars-Sinai.
Suze, an emergency room nurse from Bakersfield, California, first discovered she was pregnant thanks to a routine test ahead of a surgery to have a 22-pound ovarian cyst removed, according to Cedars-Sinai.
“Because of the large ovarian cyst that had been growing for years, it could have been a false positive, even ovarian cancer,” Suze said in a statement. “And I was used to very irregular periods and some abdominal discomfort. I could not believe that after 17 years of praying, and trying, for a second child, that I was actually pregnant.”
Suze was thrilled and shared the news with her husband at a Dodgers baseball game in Los Angeles. But on the trip, she started to feel stomach pain and rushed to Cedars-Sinai Medical Center.
There, Dr. John Ozimek discovered she had a rare ectopic pregnancy, which meant Ryu was growing inside her abdomen, behind the mass, according to Cedars-Sinai.
“Suze was pregnant, but her uterus was empty, and a giant benign ovarian cyst weighing over 20 pounds was taking up so much space,” Ozimek said in a statement. “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.”
“A pregnancy this far outside the uterus that continues to develop is almost unheard of,” he added.
When Suze went into labor, it involved a complex delivery and surgery, according to Cedars-Sinai. Dr. Michael Manuel helped lift the cyst out of the way, allowing Ozimek and his team to deliver the baby.
But after the delivery, Suze started “hemorrhaging badly,” Dr. Michael Sanchez said in a statement.
“We were a specially trained team of obstetric anesthesiologists and well prepared, but it was still intense,” he said. “I had already powered up a special machine that delivers blood products fast because every second matters. We used 11 units of blood.”
In the aftermath, Suze was focused on recovering quickly so she could spend time with her newborn, her husband and her teenage daughter, Kaila, according to Cedars-Sinai. One nurse, Carmen Chavez, acted as her guardian angel throughout the process, Suze said.
“She checked on me so often,” she said. “She sat in on the consults with doctors to make sure we understood everything I was facing at a difficult time. She even helped us tell my daughter about the pregnancy. I’m a nurse myself, but what Carmen did was above and beyond. It meant everything.”
Suze said she’s grateful for Ryu and sees every day as a “gift” following her delivery, according to Cedars-Sinai.
“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 said.
