A routine ultrasound led to a startling discovery no mother wants or expects.Tammy Gonzalez of Miami, Florida, was undergoing the routine procedure when doctors reportedly noticed what looked like a giant bubble being blown just above the baby’s mouth.“Is that on me or the baby?” Gonzalez asked the doctor.
After further examination, doctors realized the unusual bubble was actually something known as a teratoma. Teratomas are extremely rare and often fatal tumors that occur in roughly 1 out of every 100,000 births. Gonzalez’s doctors reportedly recommended that she terminate the pregnancy because of the risk of miscarriage.
However, Gonzalez refused, believing there had to be another way to save her baby.“They told me that type of tumor can grow so fast,” Gonzalez told ABC News. “I said, ‘There must be something we can do.’”
Eventually, she learned about a procedure called endoscopic surgery, a treatment that had never been attempted before in this situation. Despite the risk, Gonzalez agreed to try it.Her response when asked about the experimental surgery was simple: “Let’s do this.”
Dr. Ruben Quintero, director of the Fetal Therapy Center at Jackson Memorial Hospital in Miami, performed the groundbreaking procedure. He inserted a tiny camera and surgical instruments through a quarter-inch incision in Gonzalez’s abdomen and into the amniotic sac.
Gonzalez remained awake during the entire operation.“I couldn’t feel the incision because of the local anesthetic, but I could feel the tube going into the sac,” she said. “It felt like a popping balloon.”
The camera allowed Quintero to closely examine the tumor and determine whether it could be safely removed.“It was a decisive moment,” the doctor said. “We went ahead and cut the stem, and sure enough the tumor fell right out.”
Gonzalez said she felt immense relief as she watched the tumor float away from her baby’s face on the ultrasound screen.“It was amazing,” she said. “It was like a 500-ton weight lifted off of me.”
Because the tumor was too large to remove through the amniotic sac, it remained floating inside the womb until the baby was born four months later. By that time, it had shrunk significantly.Gonzalez later shared that her daughter, Leyna, was born healthy.“She’s perfectly fine,” Gonzalez said. “She has a tiny scar on the roof of her mouth. She talks, she drinks. She is my little miracle child.”