Most moms will tell you that pregnancy and birth are scary enough even when everything goes right. All you want is to hear that first loud cry and know your baby is healthy.
For one family, the moment that should have been pure joy turned into something unthinkable. Their baby boy arrived in the world with serious medical problems and was placed on a ventilator almost immediately.
His grandmother, Lisa Hough, shared their story online, posting a photo of her grandson Karson, born to her daughter Chelsea. Lisa explained that the little boy had come into the world with multiple complications.
“The only way to describe what has happened is that this beautiful baby boy has suffered two very rare traumatic conditions that are completely unrelated to one another,” she wrote.
Doctors discovered that Karson had suffered a hemorrhage in the left temporal lobe of his brain and had also been diagnosed with a rare genetic metabolic disorder called non-ketotic hyperglycinemia (NKH). In severe cases, NKH causes major neurological damage.
According to Lisa, the specialists told the family that even if he somehow survived, he would be “severely neurologically impaired – functioning at a 2–3 month old level at best for his lifetime.”
Faced with this devastating prognosis and guided by the medical team’s advice, Karson’s mother made an almost impossible choice: she agreed to withdraw life support.
“We were given 10 minutes to say goodbye”
Lisa described the heartbreaking moment when the family gathered to let him go.
“While we weren’t ready to say goodbye to Karson, we had come to terms with the inevitable,” she wrote. “We were given 10 minutes after withdrawing intensive care and the ventilator and told he would not breathe on his own and to expect his heart to stop within those 10 minutes.”
The ventilator was removed. The family braced themselves.
Then something no one expected happened.
A baby who “wasn’t supposed” to breathe
Instead of slipping away, Karson immediately started breathing on his own.
Lisa says his heart rate and oxygen levels stabilized, and hours later he was still with them:
“He immediately started breathing on his own once the ventilator was removed, heart rate and oxygen stabilized, and here we are 5 hours later with this miracle baby that we were told would never breathe, swallow, have gag reflexes, or even survive.”
Contrary to everything they’d been told, he was breathing without support.
“He is swallowing. He is surviving. He even has slightly opened his eyes a couple times today.”
Doctors had no medical explanation. Lisa wrote that no data or science could account for his sudden improvement; the only word anyone in the family could find for it was “miracle.”
“I’m not sure why I ever thought we were so undeserving of a miracle… and I’m not sure how long we have with him, but we have him now. And now we will take,” she said.
Going home with their “miracle baby”
On March 1, not long after the day they thought would be his last, the family received news they barely dared hope for:
Karson was well enough to go home.
“Every day, I am brought to my knees, and just when I think God is done, I am quickly reminded that he isn’t… I have no words for my gratitude and I will praise Him for as long as I have air in my lungs for giving Karson his,” Lisa wrote in a later update.
From her very first post, thousands of people followed the family’s journey. The update announcing that Karson had survived and was thriving drew more than 30,000 reactions, with strangers from all over the world celebrating his progress and sending prayers and messages of support.
Karson’s mom, Chelsea, later shared her own reflections on how that day had turned their world upside down – and how grateful they are for every moment they now get with their little boy.
Today, Karson is living proof that sometimes, even when doctors say there is no hope, something extraordinary can happen. His family calls him their miracle baby, and they’re determined to cherish every single day they’ve been given.
