When Sierra Yoder went with her husband Dustin to get her 22-week ultrasound and find out the sex of their baby, she was shocked when the concerned doctor sent her to a neurosurgeon. Soon after, the baby was diagnosed with encephalocele, a condition affecting 1 out of every 10,000 babies, causing part or all of the brain to form outside the skull, usually in a “sac-like protrusion.” Though doctors originally believed Bentley had a slim chance of surviving, he’s now home after ground-breaking surgery that helped put his brain inside his skull, the Washington Post reports.

An x-ray of Bentley’s skull before surgery. BOSTON CHILDREN’S HOSPITAL/YOUTUBE

“‘If he makes it,'” Yoder, 25, told the Post the doctors told them, “‘he will not be compatible with life.’ We had no hope whatsoever.” The couple scheduled an abortion but decided not to go through with it the day of the procedure. “I couldn’t do it,” Yoder explains in the below Boston Children’s Hospital video. “I just had it set in my head that he wasn’t going to turn out the way they thought he was.”

Doctors then gave the couple information about funeral homes in the area, preparing them for the possibility Bentley would die as soon as he was born. Yoder came to the hospital in labor on Halloween of last year with nothing but one onesie to bury her son in.

When Bentley was born, his family held him for hours — until it reached the 36-hour mark and “he was crying and he was breathing and he was moving. We were all just staring at him.” Doctors told the family to bring Bentley home and arrange for hospice. Though the baby struggled to breathe sometimes and doctors continually believed he would not make it, he did.

Read More – Source: Meet the Miracle Baby Born With His Brain Outside His Skull — Bentley Yoder Born With Encephalocele

By Tess Koman