Doctors deliver ‘miracle baby’ after rare, high-risk abdominal pregnancy

Healthy baby boy born after growing outside of uterus

A miracle arrived for the Lopez family after their baby boy was born after doctors discovered his mom had a rare abdominal pregnancy.

LOS ANGELES - Meet baby Ryu Lopez… a miracle born against all odds.

His 41-year-old mom, Suze, didn’t know she was pregnant until just days before his extraordinary birth while getting ready for a surgery to have a large ovarian cyst removed.

What they're saying:

"Routinely, you just do a pregnancy test and it was positive. So I was like, well, this can't be right. It hasn't been positive in 17 years, you know. So I was a bit of a shock. Checked it again, positive, take it again, third time positive. I was like, okay, well, ovarian cancer can be a false positive. So I wasn't even believing it at that point," Suze Lopez said. 

After an ultrasound showed tiny ribs developing outside her uterus, doctors confirmed a rare abdominal ectopic pregnancy, which is incredibly risky for both mom and baby.

"Suze was pregnant, but her uterus was empty, and a giant benign ovarian cyst weighing over 20 pounds was taking up so much space," said John Ozimek, DO, medical director of Labor and Delivery. "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."

Couple gets the shock of their lives 

Three days after finding out she was pregnant, Suze broke the news to her husband Andrew at a Dodgers game.

"I was thinking she's probably two, three months along, and I have plenty of time. But she started to feel a little funny and I was concerned, so I made her stop by the Cedar Sinai ER and as I was parking, I was also on the phone and she's like, hey, you have to hurry up and come because they're bumping me up. I guess something's going on that you need to be here for. And I'm like, okay," Andrew Lopez explained. 

Turns out Suze was already full-term.

"It was very shocking because I initially thought she was two to three months pregnant, and turns out she was 41 weeks!"

Miracle boy arrives 

A team of about 30 experts rushed in to pull off the highly coordinated, complex delivery and surgery… removing a 20-plus pound cyst and eight-pound Ryu.

The name Ryu is inspired by a former Dodger catcher and a character in the movie "Street Fighter."

"We liked it so much because, you know, it connects with the fact that he's a fighter and also the fact that we were at a Dodger game, so it worked out," Andrew stated.