A Wyoming couple were thrilled with their newborn, but he just wasn’t feeding. Then an X-ray discovered a big problem with their little mite. What happened next baffled the medics…

The just-got-home jitters strike just about every mother and father bringing a baby back from hospital for the first time. The parents can barely sleep, wondering if the newborn is okay and if it will cry. And when they do hear a whimper they worry they won’t be able to figure out what exactly is wrong.

Image: Presidencia de la República Mexicana

Although Wyoming parents Jake and Casey Cheser already had a toddler, Derek, they faced exactly this dilemma with their second son, Hunter, born on November 10, 2013. Back at the family home in the small town of Kaycee in the northwest mountain state, their two-day-old baby just didn’t seem to have an appetite – much to mom and dad’s alarm.

It is common enough for any new moms to struggle with getting their babies to latch on for breastfeeding, but Hunter even had trouble with formula feed from a bottle. “He couldn’t hold anything down from the first time we tried to feed him,” she told religious television company the Christian Broadcasting Network.

“He could only eat about a half-ounce of formula at a time instead of the normal two ounces,” Casey said. “Any more than that and he would spit everything back up.” He had another interesting symptom on top of that. “Any pressure on his stomach would make him spit back up,” she added.

Casey, along with her highway patrolman husband Jake, decided Hunter had to see their doctor. After hearing about Hunter’s distressing symptoms, the doctor wasted no time in ordering X-rays to take a look at the interior of the newborn’s stomach.

What the X-ray pictures revealed in the baby’s abdomen was shocking and heart-rending. “There was just a mass that took up about two-thirds of his stomach,” Jake told the Christian Broadcasting Network. “They actually showed us where it was, and you could feel it.”

The father was horrified to be able to feel the growth in his son’s tiny abdomen for himself. He said, “It was probably the most heartbreaking part of it, actually being able to feel the mass in his stomach that’s not letting him eat.”

The doctor barely gave Jake any time to process his heartbreak. The medic knew the mass was life-threatening for the newborn and that action was imperative. The doctor told the Chesers that tiny Hunter would need to undergo treatment immediately in order to save his life.

Casey can vividly remember the doctor delivering the dreadful prognosis. Speaking to the Christian Broadcasting Network, she recalled him saying, “Hunter cannot live with this mass and we need to send him to Denver, Colorado, to take it out, because he can’t eat enough to live with it.”

The new parents were understandably overcome with emotion when they heard how sick Hunter was. “I remember both my wife and I were just very scared, very worried,” Jake said. Casey agreed: “I was blown away,” she said. “You don’t expect to see that in your baby that’s two days old.”

The baby was airlifted to Denver’s Rocky Mountain Hospital for Children the same day, November 12, where a new team of doctors confirmed the baby’s initial diagnosis with a 3-D ultrasound. On hearing the news Jake and Casey realized they were at the start of a very long road to their son’s recovery.

Jake had to make the five-and-a-half-hour car journey to Denver from Wyoming himself. He said, “The best prognosis we were looking at was [Hunter] leaving in two months. But we [thought that we] should probably plan for him to be there for at least six months.”

Mother and son settled into their hospital room the night before Hunter’s surgery with the parents now resigned to the fact that they could be at the facility for quite some time. As any mother would, Casey tried again to feed her young son despite his prognosis and impending procedure. This time, however, something was different.

“I was in the room by myself and I fed Hunter and he drank the whole two-ounce bottle, and he was perfectly fine,” explained Casey. “At that time, I was cautiously optimistic, because I didn’t want to get my hopes up, but something changed.”

The following morning, the doctors examined Hunter’s stomach one more time prior to his surgery. After the scheduled MRI, one of the doctors approached Casey with “a strange look on her face, which scared me to death,” the young mom recalled to the Christian Broadcasting Network.

“[Her face] is like something happened, you know, and it probably is not good,” she went on. “But [the doctor] came in and she said, ‘Okay, I have news for you.’ She said, ‘We just got done with the MRI, and I don’t know what they saw, but it’s not there now.’”

The mass – once blocking the majority of the tiny baby’s stomach – had completely disappeared. According to the Christian Broadcasting Network, Hunter’s medical record confirms the story; the mass was detected by 3-D ultrasound, the result was written up, and the blockage was gone just one day later on November 13.

The new parents were – obviously – overcome with their emotions once again, but this time of sheer relief and elation. “I remember looking at Casey and we just broke down and both started crying,” Jake said of their speechless reaction. The doctors had no words of explanation as to what had happened either.

The family credit the power of prayer for their son’s healing. They reached out to relatives and friends and asked them to send prayers. Casey’s brother, Morgan, issued a call for prayer on social media and from there it went viral. The Chesers credit these words for their son’s miraculous recovery. “Every single one of those prayers mattered,” Casey said.

Clearly Casey and Jake have nothing but gratitude for everyone who helped their son, as well as for all of those who thought about them in their prayers. Their newborn is now a happy toddler hanging out with older brother Derek. Hunter is just as busy as any child his age, and oblivious to his rocky start to life. Most importantly, however, he has his health – and his thankful parents know just how fortunate they all are for that fact.