Cedars-Sinai Hospital is sharing the details of what doctors in Los Angeles are calling a “medical miracle.” It started earlier this year, when Suze Lopez was preparing to have a 22-pound ovarian tumor removed and discovered she was pregnant while taking a required routine pre-surgery pregnancy test. The 41-year-old nurse had been dealing with the growing cyst for years and had irregular periods, so she had no idea she was even pregnant.
Nor did her Doctors. Dr. Michael Manuel "It was profound to see this full-term baby sitting behind a very large ovarian tumor, not in the uterus. In my entire career, I've never even heard of one making it this far into the pregnancy."
Dr. John Ozimek, medical director of Labor and Delivery, says they “discovered a nearly full-term baby boy in a small space in the abdomen, near the liver, with his butt resting on the uterus. "I've never even seen this in a medical journal".
Lopez’s medical team of 30 experts had to figure out how to deliver the baby with a placenta and its blood vessels attached, and remove the large mass from her ovary, while saving both mother and baby. They were able to lift the cyst, then quickly deliver the baby, Ryu Lopez, who was born weighing eight pounds and had “very few health problems.” Both mom and baby are doing well now and dad Andrew Lopez says, “Ryu and Suze are my miracles.”