In 2012, during a routine prenatal ultrasound in Miami, Florida, Tammy Gonzalez was surprised to see what looked like her unborn baby blowing a bubble. What first seemed like a sweet, playful image soon revealed a serious medical condition that would test her pregnancy journey.
During a routine ultrasound, Gonzalez noticed a bubble-shaped image near her baby’s mouth. Worried, she asked the doctor, “Is that on me or the baby?” Further testing revealed it was a teratoma—a rare and often deadly tumor that occurs in only about 1 in 100,000 births.
Doctors warned Gonzalez to consider ending the pregnancy, explaining that the tumor carried a high risk of miscarriage and could grow rapidly. Refusing to give up, she searched for alternatives, insisting, “There must be something we can do.”
Her search led to endoscopic surgery—a procedure never before used for this condition. At Jackson Memorial Hospital in Miami, Dr. Ruben Quintero, director of the Fetal Therapy Center, performed the pioneering operation. Through a small incision in Gonzalez’s abdomen, he inserted a tiny camera and surgical instruments into the amniotic sac and successfully removed the tumor. Gonzalez, who remained awake during the surgery, recalled the sensation of the tube entering the sac as “like a popping balloon.”
Because the tumor was too large to extract right away, it was left to float inside the amniotic sac until Gonzalez delivered four months later—by then, it had shrunk considerably. Her daughter, Leyna, was born healthy, bearing only a small scar on the roof of her mouth as a trace of the experience. Overjoyed, Gonzalez described Leyna as her “little miracle child.”
Tammy Gonzalez’s journey highlights both the power of medical innovation and the strength of a mother’s determination. Her experience not only provides hope to other expectant parents facing difficult diagnoses but also showcases how groundbreaking surgical techniques can transform the future of fetal medicine.