They Tried For Years For A Baby. When He Was Born, Doctors Noticed THIS.

By Editorial Staff in Feel Good On 20th January 2016
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Tiffnie and Manny Esquibel had been trying for years to have a baby.

They've been married for 13 years, and they've always wanted children. When Tiffnie became pregnant, it was cause for celebration.

The beginning of her pregnancy was completely normal. She actually told NBC News, "I enjoyed every minute of it."

But as she reached the later stages of pregnancy, doctors found something concerning: The baby apparently had a tumor on his brain. They advised Tiffnie to induce labor immediately, and she agreed. As soon as the baby was born, he was rushed into treatment.

That's when the new parents got some terrible news. Doctors said that the baby, Sam, had what appeared to be a cancerous tumor. They asked if Tiffnie was religious, and told her to get the baby baptized.

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"That was the toughest part that I went through when they started saying, 'You might want to get your son baptized.' That was very hard to take," Manny Esquibel told NBC.

"They actually told us it was a 50/50 chance, whether he could make it through or not," Tiffnie said later in an interview with NBC's Today.

Their only hope was immediate surgery, which is always risky with young infants. Sam was sent to Memorial Hospital for Children in Colorado Springs, where Dr. Paul Grabb's team operated to remove the tumor.

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"There is something wrong with your baby."

During the surgery, however, Dr. Grabb saw something that he'd never seen before: a foot, fully formed, in his patient's brain.

"It made me stop operating, since I'm not used to seeing feet in the brain," Grabb said later.

The foot was most likely a teratoma, which is a mass that develops during pregnancy with incomplete body parts. It could also have been "fetus in fetu," an extraordinarily rare condition in which a twin engulfs the other twin; the engulfed twin can continue to develop.

While this is certainly a bizarre situation, Sam is a healthy, happy baby boy. He will need minor physical therapy to correct the gaze on the right side of his head, and he has a scar from the surgery, but he's expected to make a full recovery.

Meanwhile, his parents see the incredible circumstances surrounding his birth as a miracle.

"We just love him so much," Tiffnie said.

"He's turned our life around, that's for sure," Manny added.