The image showed that the fetus' stomach was in the area where her lungs should be. Her doctor had never seen anything like it. That same day, he sent Beverly to a high-risk pregnancy specialist in Fresno, 35 miles away from their small town in California's central valley.
The specialist couldn't make a definite diagnosis, either. But as an instructor in the UCSF Fresno Medical Education Program, an outpost of the UCSF School of Medicine, he knew who could.
"He told me they couldn't help me there, and I would have to go to UCSF," says Beverly. "He called the Fetal Treatment Center and I spoke with someone right then and there." Two days later, Beverly made the four-hour drive to San Francisco for the first time. It was the start of a long, demanding journey to bring her daughter into the world safely.
Dr. Lee made sure I knew all my options, he was very honest, he answered all my questions very openly and never rushed me. If it hadn't been for UCSF and Dr. Lee, my daughter wouldn't be here.
The first few months of Samara's life were, says Beverly, "a bumpy road." Her digestive system wasn't working well, she couldn't hold food down and hadn't gained nearly enough weight. In March, Samara had another surgery to insert a g-tube, a feeding tube placed directly into the stomach. Three weeks later, the baby girl finally started to grow and thrive. Sixty-eight days after birth, she went home.
The next major bump came over Memorial Day weekend. Samara began throwing up frequently and suffering from diarrhea. Initially diagnosed with pneumonia, Samara wasn't getting better, so her local doctor called the Fetal Treatment Center. The doctor on call — Dr. Shinjiro Hirose, who had assisted in several of Samara's surgeries — asked that she be airlifted back to UCSF.
CT scans and a series of ultrasounds revealed that Samara's patch had broken and her intestines had moved back into her chest, something Beverly and her husband had known was always a possibility after CDH repair. The surgeons performed another procedure to fix the patch, but this time they were able to use minimally invasive techniques instead of open surgery, leaving Samara with just two, dime-sized scars on her chest and back.
Six months and three surgeries after her birth, Samara's personality is beginning to emerge. She knows what she likes (playing, being held and getting attention) and what she doesn't (cold stethoscopes, wind and car seats).
As one of the brave pioneers of fetal treatment, nobody has given more than Beverly to earn the pleasure of watching Samara's personality unfold, but she's quick to share the credit. "If it hadn't been for UCSF and Dr. Lee, my daughter wouldn't be here," she says.
