Doctors Thought She Had a Tumor in Her Abdomen, But When She Was Born They Were So Shocked To See
They thought that baby Joy had a little tumor in her newborn belly, but when they went further to investigate, they found something horrifying. The car rocked viciously from side to side as Michael sped through the traffic; his wife Suzanna was in the back, screaming in agony. She had gone into premature labor and was sure that there was something wrong. They needed to get to the hospital as quickly as they could.
As Michael rushed her into the emergency room at the hospital, he tried to rattle off all the information they needed to know about his wife. Suzanna could hardly speak at this point; the pain of labor was just too much. The doctors took one look at her and knew they needed to get her into an operating room as fast as possible. Her blood pressure was far too high, and the baby was starting to show signs of distress.
While washing his hands with his colleagues, Dr. Matthews couldn’t help but comment on the nature of the C-section in her file. Her OBGYN had noted that the unborn child was not well; they suspected that her liver was underdeveloped and fostered a horrible tumor as a result. The child had been flagged to be rushed off to the NICU as soon as possible, but Susanna was just 33 weeks along, so this warranted the same treatment anyway.
The doctors were concerned that they were going to get the baby out in time, so they worked at a hyperspeed. Poor Susanna was in a daze; they had managed to do a spinal block, so she was still very much awake while dealing with the anxiety of possibly losing her baby. As the doctors worked, all she could hear was the clock ticking intensely on the wall and the sounds of surgery; this only made her anxiety worse. Tick, tick, tick. With each passing moment, she began to feel sicker and sicker.
Then suddenly, there was a cry. It was faint and weak, but it was there nonetheless. She tried desperately to get the attention of the doctors; she wanted to see her baby, she wanted to know if she was going to be okay. But they all ignored her; she felt like she was screaming at the top of her lungs and still, no one could hear her. She could just hear them urgently scuffling the baby around the operating room, obviously checking her out and seeing if she was okay. It took a whole agonizing five minutes for them to address Susanna.
Susanna saw the nurses approaching her, and then suddenly everything went pitch black. Michael was beside himself from where he was sitting in the operating room; he just saw his wife go completely limp. He screamed at the top of his lungs for someone to help her; he was sure she had just died. The doctors frantically started closing her wound up; there was blood everywhere; she was hemorrhaging. While the doctors were hard at work trying to get her fixed up, the nurses tended to her, trying to wake her up.
Michael’s vision became a blur; he didn’t know what to do. That’s when a nurse directed him to his little girl and asked him to just focus on her. He was in an absolute daze when he laid eyes on her for the very first time; he could hardly believe it. She was here and looked so well; her tiny little pink body looked as strong and healthy as she could be at that age. He was so mesmerized by her beauty; he almost forgot about his wife.
Turning his attention back, he felt sick; the doctors were now shocking her, trying to get her heart to start again. Michael just hunkered down over his little one and began to pray as hard as he could; he asked God to keep his wife healthy and safe; she needed to meet their daughter. This was not how it was meant to go; Susanna had been so happy and excited to learn she was pregnant. For it to end like this was not right at all.
Just as he was about to pray once more, he suddenly heard the nurses get excited. Susanna was back and slowly regaining consciousness. It was a miracle. He immediately asked the nurses to take his daughter over to show his wife; he wasn’t sure how long she was going to be around, and he wanted to make sure that she met her.
The look on Susanna’s face was everything when she first saw her baby; she was in an incubator tub, hooked up to many little tubes, but Susanna was able to look past that completely; she just saw the little angel that had been living in her tummy for the past 8 months. She was so grateful that she was alive. The nurses whisked her away, though, and just nonchalantly said that she was in need of some tests. To that, both Susanna and Michael’s hearts filled with dread. They knew that she was premature, but how would that make her ill? Was she going to be okay?
Susanna’s blood pressure began to skyrocket, which made it extremely dangerous for her, so she had to be sedated. Poor Michael was left essentially alone, having to face his wife who was not coping and was now drugged up, along with the fact that his daughter was not okay. He was torn, unsure of who to check up on first, but the hospital made the decision for him; they simply told him that he had to sit in the waiting room and just wait. They couldn’t let him wander around the hospital emotional and undecided. Of course, this made him even more angsty; he needed to know what was wrong with his daughter; he needed his wife to be awake and with him on the perilous path they were on.
As Susanna was slowly lifted from her sedation, they tried to comfort her as much as possible; naturally, she was frantic and desperately wanted to know what was going to happen to her daughter. Michael told her as much as he knew and then had to sit and wait for her. The tension in the room was palpable; they could hardly say two words to one another without feeling sick; they were both feeling quite vulnerable about the whole situation and didn’t know what to do about it. So, you can imagine when the doctor walked into the room for the first time, they nearly pounced on him; they accosted him with questions left and right, determined to find out what was going on. How is she? What is wrong? Why have you left us in the dark like this?
The look on the doctor’s face said it all; it wasn’t good news. The couple braced themselves; they weren’t sure if they were ready to hear what he had to say. Standing in the doorway, hand in hand, he looked at the couple gravely. When he spoke, it felt like an icy gust of wind had gushed through the door. “There’s something wrong with her, but we aren’t quite sure what it is. She is refusing to eat, and her stomach is severely distended. We need to investigate further before it’s too late.”
Before it’s too late. These words bounced around the couple’s minds; they could hardly think straight. It really was the worst-case scenario; if they couldn’t figure out what was wrong with their daughter, they could be leaving the hospital without her. The mere thought made Suzanna shiver and cry uncontrollably. But then she remembered the tumor on her liver; she quickly began to explain to the doctor all about
the supposed tumor the radiologist had noticed in their last scan. They had mentioned something about her having a small tumor on her liver, one they were quite worried about. Suzanna was convinced that this was the root cause of her daughter’s problems and insisted they look further into it.
It became immediately clear that the doctor thought this might be a possibility; he looked as though the theory made perfect sense to him. He told the parents that he would look into it and immediately left the room. Confused, Michael questioned the nurse as to why they hadn’t checked the baby out with scans before coming to them, making them think she was going to die. The nurse gently explained that they often stayed away from exposing babies to radio waves unnecessarily. The doctors allowed Michael to accompany his daughter to all further testing; Suzanna couldn’t be there because she was bedbound. Michael stayed right by his little daughter’s side through each test.
They started with her abdomen; they scanned it carefully, looking for the issue. Sure enough, there, as blatant as anything, was the mass in her abdomen. It seemed to be just unattached to anything and simply just there. This was quite concerning naturally; where had it come from? What was it? After seeing this, Michael’s mind was racing to all the darkest places too, of course.
Had his little girl been born with cancer? How could this possibly be? Suzanna was an extremely healthy person who had done everything right while pregnant. From the moment she found out she was pregnant, she had strived to do everything as perfectly as possible; quitting coffee, refraining from drinking even a drop of alcohol, eating healthy food, and taking all the vitamins and rest she needed. Was this some kind of sick irony?
When Michael asked about cancer, the doctor simply brushed them off; they told them there was no point in worrying so much just yet. After all, they had no idea what it was; they needed to do further testing. They had tried to avoid doing a colored scan using ink, but now it seemed like their only other option before surgery. They set up what they needed and immediately got to work.
The test itself was extremely invasive; they had to insert ink around her organs to see what they were dealing with. She was just too small for the scan alone to work as accurately as it should have. So, they slowly injected ink into her abdomen and diligently stared at the screen to see if they could make out what was having an untrained eye. Michael could barely make head or tail of the whole situation; he watched the screen as black and gray shadows moved around strangely. Then suddenly, the doctor stopped the test and abruptly walked out.
This was, of course, extremely startling for the young man; what had the doctor seen? Why had he reacted this way? The longer Michael thought about it, the worse the prognosis seemed; he was nervous and scared about what it might have been. But no one could have prepared him for what he was about to find out. When the doctors came back into the room, they looked startled and slightly bewildered. It made complete sense though when they began to explain what they were dealing with.
They explained that the baby was experiencing something that was unlike anything they had ever seen before; that’s how rare it was. Michael could hardly believe his ears as the doctor explained; it just all began to sound crazier and crazier. “It seems that your daughter has a fetus in her abdomen.” A fetus in her abdomen? What kind of a sci-fi daydream that Michael found himself in? At least that’s how he felt; he kept waiting to wake up, but it never happened; he was living his reality.
How on Earth had this happened? Bewildered, he began to ask questions. The doctors had a simple albeit unnerving response. “It’s extremely rare but does happen from time to time where one twin might consume or absorb the other twin. In this case, the fetus can end up in the abdomen of the other.” This was even more horrifying; the fact that Suzan had been carrying twins only for one to consume the other was a very odd and unsettling thought to have. Luckily, the doctors had a cure.
They explained that if they were careful enough, they could move the fetus from the little baby’s abdomen, and she would hardly know it. They had to go in soon, though, before further damage could take place. With Susanna in a royal state, Michael just told them to go right ahead and do what was necessary; he knew that all his wife wanted was their healthy baby.
So, the little baby underwent life-changing surgery; the doctors were meticulous in their manner of removing the unwanted tissue. At this point in her growth, the fetus was only 2 inches big; this was scary considering how small the baby was. Nonetheless, they were glad when they got the fetus out; it would now mean that she could eat better and even lead a life completely worry-free.
Michael and Suzanna were extremely grateful that their little girl was doing better but couldn’t help but mourn what could have been. The idea of having twins seemed like a dream, and knowing that they could have hurt a little. But they knew that in the greater schemes of things, God had a plan for them. Their little girl joined a record of the rarest conditions to date; she truly was one of a kind, and thanks to extremely great medical care, she would go on to live out her life as normal.
What a crazy story! Could you imagine this happening to you and your child? How would you have reacted? What do you think about the way the doctors handled everything? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below. Thanks for watching until next time.
