‘Miracle Baby’ survives after being born with their insides on the outside of the body (exclusively)

After a year of fertility treatments, Samatha and Dylan Grant decided to take a break and were happy to “accidentally” get pregnant with his first child in May 2022. At a 14-week ultrasound, the doctors saw an indicator of a genetic trisomy. They also noted that the child had a birthfect called an ombalcele, where the abdominal content stands out in a thin -walled sack outside the abdominal cavity, According to NIH.

The couple was told that Omfalcele was relatively easy to repair through the operation immediately after birth, and that their son could have a completely normal life. They also did genetic tests to see if he had a trisomy.

“I had seen a lot,” says Samatha, who at that time worked as a doctor at Texas Children’s Hospital on the Kangaroo crew. “So I was just a bit like, ‘wow, I don’t know what to do with this, because I definitely don’t want my child to suffer.'”

Fortunately, the genetic test came back. “He was perfectly genetically,” says Samatha.

At 20-week ultrasound, the technology wondered why they could not see the child’s bladder. But he was a little baby because of the birthphen. “So they were like,” we will continue to monitor it, maybe he is just too small to actually see it. ”

Two months later the couple from Pasadena, Texas heard that their son had Oeis syndromeA very rare genetic malformation that includes Omfalcele, Cloacal extreme sphere, impermed anus and spinal defects.

“It’s very, very rare,” says his pediatric urologist at Texas Children’s, Dr. Niccolò Passoni. It affects about one in 400,000 live births.

“The diagnosis is quite harmful to life,” says Samatha. Often, malformations are so serious that children do not come to birth.

But if the child survived the pregnancy, the doctors advised the couple to make a birth rate. They were told that the child’s best chance of survival was that Samatha would have a C-section. But his birth defects were so serious and his Omfalocele looked so big, “he probably won’t live after birth anyway,” remembers Samatha Grant that he heard.

“If there is almost no chance to survive, why even go down that way?” She remembers that she asked. “They were like,” that’s the best chance for him. “And I was like” okay, but I was determined at a table, cut up while my child goes away – it’s not something I want to experience. ”

She wanted a vaginal birth so she could sit up and hold her son and say goodbye.

Every doctor’s visit was more outrageous than last, says Samatha’s mother -in -law, Marion Grant.

“Every time they would go to the doctor’s meeting, they would be so upset when they were to leave, because they just didn’t get bad news,” says Marion. “They felt discouraged every time.”

They were so destroyed by their child’s condition that they didn’t even tell their friends. They told the family that he was “very, very ill.”

“We decided to keep it to ourselves that he will probably die – that there were more chances that he will die than he will live,” says Samatha.

“We had so many mixed emotions,” remember Dylan, 30, a firefighter with Houston Fire Department. “We didn’t know if we would have a child or not.”

The couple ordered a name plate saying: “Blakely.” If the child died, they planned to name him after Samatha’s late father so they could find each other in heaven.

“If he goes away, he can at least meet his grandfather, and they could have the same name,” she remembers that she was thinking.

In mid -December, Samatha went to you because she leaked fluid. She was told that the baby was sitting on the bladder and just carrying a panty food. Next week, the leak became so bad that she had to change to adult diapers.

Nine days after her ER visits, she woke up with contractions. She thought they had to be Braxton Hicks because she was still six weeks from January 28 due date.

She ignored the contractions until they were five minutes apart. “The pain was unmatched,” she says.

On Texas child pavilion for women The doctors discovered that what she had been told was only the bladder incontinence was actually amniotic fluid. There was no one left.

Her son was born and weighed 4 pounds 10 ounces on December 23, 2023.

“He was born very quietly, so I adopted the worst,” says Samatha. “He didn’t cry.”

Dylan Grant looked at the monitors when the newborn team worked on his son.

“He went up to me, and he was like,” Hi, he’s fine, “” Samantha reminds her that her husband told her. And I looked at him, I was like, “What are you talking about?” And he was like, “He’s just chilly.”

The newborn breathed on their own, Dylan Grant forwarded. Omphalocele did not break during the delivery, and it was not as big as the doctors expected.

“It was a great feeling to give her good news,” says Dylan Grant. “It was amazing. And becoming a dad was just a really good feeling.”

Samatha held his son and they named him Dawson (they just planned to name him Blakely if he didn’t survive.) “He was super cute,” she says. “I just cried. We were speechless.”

Dawson had his first surgery when he was ten days old. It was eight hours long. The doctors removed the skin from Omfalcele and pressed it and his liver and gastric organizations back into the body. With his sewer exstrophy, his guts and bladder were also outside his body, not inside Ommalcele but under it.

“In essence, the liver is type of in a protected bubble. And then under it, the intestine and bladder were only completely exposed to the environment,” says Samatha. The doctors were able to put the boy’s bowels back inside and redirect them to make an ileostomy, a surgical procedure to change how Poop leaves your body. This was needed because of his undisturbed anus. He did not have the anatomy to fit a colostomy bag, and his bladder was still on the outside of the body, sprayed, his mother says: “So the urine was always on the bag.”

As part of his condition, the boy also has a variety of Spina Bifida and a condition called vascular Ehlers-Danlos.

Dawson spent 96 days in Nicu. “It was rough,” says Samatha. “We became practical very fast.”

In August, when he was 20 months old, Dawson had a second operation. It was 16 hours and involved four different surgical teams: urology, general surgery, plastic and orthopedics. This was his “full closure” surgical reconstruction to recreate the abdomen and put all its organs in the stomach. The doctors could place a G button, so he no longer has a tube in the nose. And instead of an ileostomy, he now has a colostomy bag and an urostomive bag. The operation was successful, says Samatha. But his bladder was too small to join the urethra so he can urinate from his penis, so they had to make an urostomive bag that will probably be something he has for the rest of his life.

“He is a miracle child,” says Passoni, 38, head of the complex Urological reconstruction program On Texas Children’s Hospital. “Dawson, is the sweetest little boy. He will have more or less what we define as a normal life. The only thing that will be different for him will be how he urinates and how he has bowel movements.”

In January 2025, Samatha Dawson’s little sister gave birth to Savannah. When she became pregnant, because of her medical history, Samatha’s ob-gyn immediately sent her to a mothers medical expert who assured the couple that their daughter did not have any of her brother’s birth defects. The couple never had to worry that their daughter had the same rare condition.

“He would specifically also check if the same error that Dawson must put us in peace. And he is like:” Do you see this? There is no omalcele. Do you see this? This is your child’s butt. She has one. And this is her bladder in her body. “And we were like,” thank you. ”

On January 23, Samatha hoped to celebrate a happier birth.

“The doctors told me: ‘Oh, your child is super healthy, you have no problems, you have a big healthy child,” says Samatha.

But instead, “I had a traumatic birth,” she says.

Her daughter got stuck in the birth canal for a minute and 40 seconds. The umbilical cord was wound around the neck – twice.

“She didn’t answer,” says Samatha. “Thankfully I also answered because of pain. They actually had to revive her, because she came out completely.”

The infant spent a week in Nicu before going home.

It was a learning curve for her parents. “I will say, it was a bit like being the first time parents,” explains Dylan. “We have never changed a real diaper on Dawson. Never got Mata Dawson like a real baby. We didn’t know what we were doing, honestly,” says Dylan.

Now 5 months old Savannah lives with a paralyzed left shoulder. She has nerve damage from the delivery. The plan is to monitor until she is 18 months old to see if she regains movement or needs surgery. “Doctors are quite hopeful that the arm will heal himself,” says Samantha. She also has an eye shake due to lack of oxygen during birth. “We are looking at to see if it is permanent.”

At the same time, Dawson, now 2, is in feed therapy and learns to eat food from the mouth. Recently, his parent discovered that he loves Bluebell Banana Fudge ice cream.

Their son’s Smiley attitude blouse the spirit of their parents when they raise two children with high needs. He also inspires everyone in his family when he faces his own medical challenges. For example, his father had heart surgery but told himself that “Dawson has undergone much worse.”

“That child can go through the worst ever, and he still smiles,” says his mother. “He blows our mind.”