The next day, another doctor, a neonatologist, told the couple the same grim prognosis. Termination, the doctor said, would be a good option.
But the couple didn’t want to let their daughter go. “We looked at each other and said, ‘We’re going to fight for her. She’s going to fight,’ ” Justin says.
Paul Vincent Kuntz
A pediatric surgeon at a different hospital said she didn’t have a lot of experience with a tumor like this, but thought the tumor might be operable.
The Stahls began doing research online. They saw that Texas Children’s Hospital has seen 52 tumors like Lucy’s since 2001.
Kat grew up in the southwest Houston suburb of Sugar Land. She decided to make an appointment on Jan. 29, since she was going to be in Houston co-hosting her brother’s fiancée’s bridal shower.
There, a surgeon told Kat they had seen babies with far bigger tumors.
“He said, ‘There’s no question: This is operable. ‘We’ve seen worse,’ ” Kat remembers. “He said, ‘I can’t guarantee a good outcome, but this is definitely something we can do.’ ”
Her due date was May 18. She planned to have weekly ultrasounds in Chicago, then move to Houston in March. After an ultrasound a week later, a nurse at Texas Children’s called and told Kat her amniotic fluid had gone way up. The nurse told Kat to go to the hospital, and if she was cleared for travel, she needed to come to Houston immediately.
Two days later, Kat and her 3-year-old daughter Grace flew to Houston and moved in with Kat’s parents. Her husband followed a week later with a car full of belongings.
On Monday morning, surgeons began operating on Lucy. “Her surgery was quite interesting,” says the pediatric surgeon, Dr. Oluyinka Olutoye, co-director of Texas Children’s Fetal Center. “It was a challenging operation. It was an unusual operation — most babies that have that, they don’t survive to get the surgery.”
The tumor extended all the way up to her abdomen and was pressing on her internal organs, but the tumor didn’t constrict or damage them. “Every piece of good news we could have had was coming out of his mouth,” Justin says. “The man just saved our family. He changed the course of our lives — and our family — forever.”
And because the surgery was done when she was 36 hours old, her scars soon won’t be noticeable. “Anatomically, they made her look normal,” Kat says. “You really won’t be able to tell that she had this giant tumor growing in her and out of her.”
Lucy will still meet with a team of specialists over the next years to make sure the tumor hasn’t caused damage and won’t come back.
“The good news for Lucy is she’s already defied the odds. Very few people thought she would make it to term, or even delivery — much less making it through surgery. Now, she’s a thriving infant,” Olutoye says. “We’ll make sure Lucy continues to thrive.”
“This family really just held out hope for their child, and held onto their faith to sustain them through dark times when everything looked hopeless. It’s really short of a miracle,” Olutoye says.
The Stahls plan to move home to Chicago in June and spend the summer holding Lucy and starting their new life as a family of four.
“We fought for Lucy,” Kat says. “We’re just so happy to have her in our arms.”
source: people.com
