- Life finds a way, as they say.
Every birth is a small miracle. Others, however, are a bit more miraculous than others.
Late last year, Suze Lopez gave birth to a healthy boy. That was by no means given, considering that her pregnancy came with a slew of bizarre conditions.
The most pressing of them was that her son grew outside the womb.
It’s already extremely rare for a baby to start developing outside the womb, never mind the uterus. What’s more, the chances of such a baby surviving to full term and being delivered alive are so astronomically small that they’re practically zero.
Additionally, Lopez suffers from an enormous cyst in her ovaries. The growth is so big that she didn’t initially realize she was pregnant, so it’s pretty crazy she was able to conceive in the first place.
Yet, fast-forward to today, and Ryu Lopez is a bouncing baby boy with no issues. His parents, alongside his 18-year-old sister, sure have one story to tell him once he’s older.
“This is really insane,” summarized Dr. John Ozimek from the Cedars-Sinai Los Angeles hospital.
Here’s a real feel-good story to kick off the new year.
Not Pregnancies Expected
Suze Lopez lives with her family in Bakersfield, California. The 41-year-old had a daughter with her husband 18 years ago, and that was the last child they expected to have.
That’s because Lopez has (or had, as you’ll soon find out) a drastic health condition. In her early 20s, she developed cysts in both her ovaries, and they’ve only grown over the intervening 20 years.
Her right ovary with its cyst was removed years ago. Her left one, however, was left in place and the cyst had grown rather sizable.
By which we mean that the thing was the size of a basketball and weighed 22 pounds. Imagine walking around with that inside your body cavity.
Consequently, Lopez may often go months of years without a period and her hormonal balance is fascinating, to say the least. To put a long story short, with her condition, she and her husband really didn’t expect to ever see another kid.
One Big Belly
In early 2025, Lopez noticed that her belly had started growing. In her mind, there was only one explanation — the cyst was getting even bigger.
Yet, Lopez had gotten used to living with the growth, so she didn’t think much of this new development. She and her husband Andrew went on with their lives as usual for several months, even traveling outside the country.
Eventually, however, the growing mass started causing so much discomfort and pain that Lopez decided it was time to get it removed, no matter the risks. She went to a hospital and doctors agreed the cyst should be removed.
Before the operation, though, Lopez needed a CT scan, which required her to take a pregnancy test due to a potential radiation risk. She knew she couldn’t be pregnant, but went through with the routine check anyway.
We can only imagine her reaction when the test came back positive. Without ever feeling any pregnancy symptoms, like morning sickness or kicks, Lopez was pregnant in her ninth month.
Ectopic Baby
Soon afterward, Lopez became very sick with extremely high blood pressure and was taken to the Cedars-Sinai hospital. There, doctors stabilized her condition and gave her an ultrasound and an MRI.
These tests revealed even more surprises. Despite being pregnant, Lopez’ womb was empty.
Instead, the nearly ready-to-pop baby was embedded in Lopez’ abdominal cavity, near her liver.
“It did not look like it was directly invading any organs. It looked like it was mostly implanted on the sidewall of the pelvis, which is also very dangerous but more manageable than being implanted in the liver,” said Dr. Ozimek.
Pregnancies outside the uterus — also called ectopic pregnancies — are exceedingly rare, with only about 1 in 30,000 pregnancies occurring like this. The odds of an ectopic baby surviving to full term are much, much smaller, less than 1 in a million.
Somehow, Lopez and her baby had beaten these odds.
Difficult Delivery
Now, however, it was time for baby Lopez to come out. Due to the health issues the baby was causing, doctors decided they would deliver the ready-to-go, 8-pound baby through surgery.
While they were at it, they would also remove the enormous ovarian cyst.
That was easier said than done. During the operation, Lopez virtually bled dry, hemorrhaging so much that she stayed alive only through constant blood transfusions.
“The whole time, I might have seemed calm on the outside, but I was doing nothing but praying on the inside,” said Andrew Lopez.
“It was just something that scared me half to death, knowing that at any point I could lose my wife or my child.”
In the end, however, the delivery was a complete success. Mrs. Lopez and her baby — named Ryu after Korean baseball player Hyun-jin Ryu — have both recovered.
Now, Ryu is at home and loves playing with his sister Kaila, 18 years his senior. As to his mother, Lopez says she feels blessed beyond words.
“I do believe in miracles. God gave us this gift — the best gift ever,” she said.