Baby survives surgery in womb

HOUSTON – Tiny Garrett Jorgensen turned three weeks old and was discharged from the hospital Friday. The miracle is that he made it into this world at all.

Just three weeks shy of his due date, a tumor had overtaken two-thirds of Garrett’s small chest cavity. It pushed his heart to one side, cramped his lungs so neither would have been able to expand after birth and caused his belly to fill with fluid as his heart began to fail.

Garrett was dying inside his mother’s womb, Dr. Oluyinka Olutoye said. So, on July 29, emergency surgery was performed on the 7-pound fetus while he was still in his mother’s womb. He was born during the surgery.

Olutoye, a pediatric surgeon at the Texas Center for Fetal Surgery, said it was the first time fetal surgery has been performed to remove that type of tumor.

“It was a pretty substantial endeavor,” Olutoye said Thursday night at Texas Children’s Hospital, where he visited Garrett. “This is a very new tumor that we do not understand the biology, so we are going to be following Garrett for a very, very long time.”

The first-time mom is pleased with the outcome.

“It was very emotional, but a true blessing,” said Ellen Jorgensen, 37. “And now he has got all of his tubes out and we get to hold him every day and spoil him rotten.”