Suze Lopez walked into Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles expecting to leave lighter. For years, a massive growth had been expanding inside her abdomen, pressing against her organs and causing constant discomfort. At 41 years old, she had finally decided enough was enough. Surgery would remove the 22-pound ovarian cyst that had been stealing her quality of life.

But before doctors could wheel her into the operating room, they needed to run some standard pre-operative tests. One of those tests would change everything Lopez thought she knew about her own body. A routine pregnancy test came back positive.

Lopez, an emergency room nurse from Bakersfield, California, stared at the result in disbelief. She had spent 17 years trying to conceive a second child after having her daughter Kaila in her early 20s. Countless prayers, endless hoping, and nothing. She had long accepted that her family was complete. And now, with a tumor the size of a basketball occupying her abdomen, pregnancy seemed like the last possible explanation.

Her mind raced through other possibilities. Perhaps the cyst was causing a false positive. Perhaps something far worse was happening inside her body. At her age, with her medical history, ovarian cancer seemed more likely than a baby.

What happened next would leave a team of 30 medical specialists in awe and send Lopez’s family into a whirlwind of fear, hope, and wonder.

Years of Living With a Growing Mass

View this post on Instagram

Lopez had been dealing with ovarian cysts since her twenties. Doctors had already removed her right ovary along with another cyst years earlier. But one stubborn mass remained, and medical professionals had been monitoring it carefully.

Over time, her belly grew. Her periods stayed irregular, sometimes disappearing for years at a stretch. She experienced abdominal discomfort that she attributed to the tumor pressing against her internal organs. None of these symptoms struck her as unusual, given her medical history.

She and her husband, Andrew, continued living their lives. They traveled abroad. They raised their teenage daughter. And Lopez kept working as an ER nurse, pushing through the pain and pressure in her midsection.

When the discomfort became too much to ignore, she scheduled the surgery. Removing a 22-pound cyst would be a major procedure, but it promised relief from years of physical burden. She never imagined that burden included a secret passenger.

A Baseball Game and a Shocking Reveal

After receiving her positive pregnancy test, Lopez needed time to process the news before sharing it with Andrew. She chose a date night at a Dodgers baseball game in Los Angeles as the moment to tell him. She handed her husband a package containing a note and a baby onesie.

“I just saw her face,” Andrew recalled, “and she just looked like she wanted to weep and smile and cry at the same time.”

Joy and terror mixed in that stadium seat. After 17 years of trying, could they really be having another child? And what did this mean for her upcoming surgery?

Shortly after the game, Lopez began feeling unwell. Severe abdominal pain sent her rushing to Cedars-Sinai, where doctors discovered her blood pressure had climbed to dangerous levels. Medical staff worked quickly to stabilize her while ordering blood work, an ultrasound, and an MRI. What those scans showed would stun every physician in the room.

An Empty Womb and a Hidden Baby

Dr. John Ozimek, medical director of labor and delivery at Cedars-Sinai, studied the diagnostic images with growing astonishment. Lopez was indeed pregnant. But her uterus was empty.

“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 explained. “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.”

Lopez had an abdominal ectopic pregnancy. Instead of implanting in her uterus, where a fertilized egg belongs, her baby had attached somewhere in her abdomen and grown there for months. Only 1 in 30,000 pregnancies occur outside the uterus in this way. Full-term survival in such cases happens in far less than 1 in a million births.

Dr. Michael Manuel, a gynecological oncologist called in to remove the giant cyst, said he had never even heard of a case making it this far into pregnancy during his entire career.

As the baby grew behind the massive tumor, it pushed the cyst forward. Lopez had simply assumed her tumor was getting bigger. She never felt kicks. She never experienced morning sickness. Every symptom that might have signaled pregnancy got masked by the medical condition she already knew about.

Why Abdominal Pregnancies Are So Dangerous

In a typical pregnancy, a fertilized egg travels down the fallopian tube and implants in the uterine wall, where the placenta can safely develop and nourish the growing fetus. In an abdominal ectopic pregnancy, the egg implants somewhere else entirely, often attaching to organs or major blood vessels.

Without the protective environment of the uterus, both mother and baby face extreme danger. Catastrophic bleeding can occur at any moment. Fetal mortality rates in these cases can reach as high as 90 percent. Among the rare babies who do survive, about one in five are born with birth defects.

Ozimek noted that Lopez’s baby appeared to be implanted on the sidewall of her pelvis rather than directly on an organ like her liver. While still extremely dangerous, this placement proved slightly more manageable for the surgical team planning the delivery. Every hour that passed increased the risk. Cedars-Sinai needed to act fast.

Assembling a Team for the Impossible

Hospital staff assembled approximately 30 specialists to handle what promised to be one of the most complex deliveries any of them had ever attempted. Maternal-fetal medicine experts, gynecological oncologists, nurses, anesthesiologists, and surgical technicians filled the operating room to near capacity.

Dr. Manuel would lift the massive dermoid cyst out of the way so Ozimek and his team could access the baby. Neonatal intensive care staff stood ready to receive the infant immediately after delivery. Anesthesiologist Dr. Michael Sanchez powered up a special machine capable of delivering blood products at high speed, knowing that every second would matter if Lopez began to hemorrhage.

Nurse Carmen Chavez, assistant manager of the Maternal-Fetal Care Unit, stayed close to Lopez before the procedure. She sat in on consultations with doctors to ensure the family understood everything they faced. She even helped the couple explain the pregnancy to their 18-year-old daughter, Kaila.

Lopez, herself a nurse, calls Chavez her guardian angel through the entire ordeal. On August 18, 2025, everyone took their positions. Andrew Lopez waited outside, trying to hold himself together.

“The whole time, I might have seemed calm on the outside, but I was doing nothing but praying on the inside,” he said. “It was just something that scared me half to death, knowing that at any point I could lose my wife or my child.”

Against Every Odd, Baby Ryu Arrives

Dr. Manuel lifted the 22-pound cyst while Ozimek’s team worked to deliver the baby from Lopez’s abdomen. Within moments, an 8-pound baby boy entered the world with a full head of hair and a strong set of lungs.

But celebration would have to wait. As soon as doctors delivered the baby, Lopez began hemorrhaging severely. She lost nearly all of her blood on the operating table.

Sanchez and his team moved with precision. Eleven units of blood flowed into Lopez as the medical staff fought to save her life. Years of training at one of California’s only Level IV Maternal Care hospitals paid off in those critical minutes. Both mother and baby survived.

Two Weeks of Watching and Waiting

Doctors rushed baby Ryu to the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit, where specialists worried about whether his lungs had developed properly outside the womb. Neonatologist Dr. Sara Dayanim said the team was prepared to handle any respiratory problems.

But Ryu had other plans. He came out of anesthesia quickly and showed a fighting spirit that surprised everyone. Staff removed his breathing tube the following day. Over two weeks in the NICU, he hit every developmental benchmark doctors hoped to see.

Lopez recovered in a nearby room, determined to spend as much time as possible with her new son. Despite losing nearly all her blood during surgery, she pushed herself to heal quickly.

Her medical team could hardly believe what they had witnessed. “It was really, really remarkable,” Ozimek said. Cedars-Sinai plans to document the case in medical journals, adding Lopez and Ryu to an extremely small collection of abdominal ectopic pregnancies that resulted in a healthy mother and child.

A Gift Named Ryu

Months after his dramatic entrance, Ryu Lopez is healthy and thriving. His parents named him after both a baseball player and a character from the Street Fighter video game series. His middle name, Jesse, means “gift from God.”

Andrew Lopez watches his son bond with big sister Kaila and feels overwhelming gratitude. After 17 years of hoping for a second child, their family is finally complete.

Lopez posted on Facebook during the holiday season that her family received “a very special and surprising Christmas gift this year.” Ryu celebrated his first Christmas surrounded by parents who still marvel at his existence. “I appreciate every little thing. Everything. Every day is a gift and I’m never going to waste it,” Lopez said.

What Ryu’s Story Teaches Us About Life and Possibility

Against every statistic, every medical expectation, and every logical outcome, Ryu Lopez exists. His story asks us to reconsider how we think about life on Earth, where survival often depends on factors we cannot predict or control. A fertilized egg landed in the wrong place. A massive tumor masked all the signs. Yet somehow, cells divided, organs formed, and a baby grew where none should have survived.

For those willing to sit with the weight of this event, Ryu’s birth offers something beyond medical wonder. It reminds us that human potential defies probability. Doctors trained for decades assembled in one room. Machines delivered blood at the speed of seconds. Science and skill met circumstance, and together they pulled off what seemed impossible.

Readers may find in Ryu’s story a quiet invitation. When odds feel crushing, when paths seem blocked, life sometimes finds a way through. Not always. Not for everyone. But sometimes. And that slim possibility is worth holding onto.

Loading...