He wasn’t supposed to be here. Experts say babies like Ryu Lopez don’t usually make it this far. But this holiday season, the Lopez family is deeply grateful for beating incredible odds in what Cedars-Sinai physicians are calling a medical miracle.
Suze Lopez, a nurse from Bakersfield, California, was scheduled to finally have a 22-pound ovarian cyst removed; one that had been growing for years. But the results of a routine pregnancy test that was required before the surgery would give her the shock of a lifetime.
“Because of the large ovarian cyst that had been growing for years, it could have been a false positive, even ovarian cancer,” Lopez said. “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.”
Three days after finding out she was pregnant, the 41-year-old emergency room nurse shared the good news with her husband, Andrew, during a date night at a Dodgers baseball game in Los Angeles. But during the trip Lopez started having pains
But during the trip Lopez started having pain in her abdomen and they headed to Cedars-Sinai.
When they arrived at the medical center, Lopez had dangerously high blood pressure.
John Ozimek, DO, medical director of Labor and Delivery, and his team got to work, stabilizing her blood pressure and ordering an MRI, blood work and an ultrasound.
Ozimek was stunned by what the diagnostic images revealed: a very rare abdominal ectopic pregnancy.
“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. “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.”
Ozimek said that as the baby grew inside Lopez’s abdomen, behind the mass, it pushed the very large cyst forward. “It makes sense that she just thought the tumor was getting bigger again, not that she could be pregnant.
In a rare abdominal pregnancy, Cedars-Sinai safely delivered a healthy baby while removing a 22-pound ovarian tumor, giving a family unexpected holiday joy.
www.cedars-sinai.org