A baby has been dubbed a ‘mini Hulk’ after she was born with a rare medical condition that causes an abnormally large chest and arms.
Armani Milby was delivered via C-section at just 33 weeks, weighing 12lbs – more than three times the average size for the gestation.
In fact, her mum Chelsey, 33, said people thought she was expecting triplets because of the size of her bump.
When Armani was born she was diagnosed with a severe form of lymphangioma, which causes benign growths in the lymph vessels – causing her to look like a ‘mini bodybuilder’.
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Chelsey, from, Kentucky, US, found out Armani had the condition after an ultrasound at 17 weeks, when doctors were concerned over suspected fluid around her heart.
Despite doctors giving her unborn baby a 0% chance of survival, Chelsey still wanted to continue with her pregnancy.
She said: ‘I had never, ever, heard of the diagnosis before and honestly, I had looked into it, and I didn’t really like the results with some of the pictures.
‘When I found out, to be honest, I was devastated, I was heartbroken. I didn’t understand what happened, what went wrong, because I had two other healthy babies, and I cried every day. Every day, I asked God why.
‘We never considered an abortion even though it was mentioned to us almost immediately after it was discovered there were some major concerns with our unborn baby, but we just wanted to know how we could help her when she was born.
‘They literally gave her a zero per cent chance. They said she wouldn’t make it and that she probably wouldn’t be crying when she came out.’
Due to her baby’s unusual size, Chelsey experienced an extremely difficult pregnancy.
The 33-year-old mum recalls: ‘My body was shutting down. Something was telling me it was time to get her out. I was almost 200 pounds (14 stone), and my health was getting really bad.
‘I suffered every day. I could never sleep. I was extremely sick.
‘That’s why I had them take her at 33 weeks because my body was shutting down. It was getting harder every day to live life and actually breathe because I was so uncomfortable, as I had to keep getting fluid drained out of my stomach.
‘To everyone’s surprise, she came out crying and everybody in the room was emotional. No one knew what was going to happen. It’s a very magical story.’
Shortly after Armani was delivered the little one began treatment at a specialist hospital. Since then, she’s been undergoing constant procedures to remove extra fluid from her body, however, still has lots of excess skin.
The youngster, now nine months, will have surgery later this year where doctors will extract extra lymphatic vessels that should help her body shrink down to the correct size. Then, over the coming years, she’ll undergo surgery to remove the extra skin.
Chelsey also believes that her daughter will be able to live a normal and pain-free life.
She said: ‘Now she’s squishy, I just call her my little squishy baby. She’s doing very well. She has a lot of extra skin. It’ll all go away, and she’ll be the normal-looking baby. She’ll just have significant scarring from the surgeries and everything.
‘She’s happy. She hardly ever cries unless she wants to be held. We’re trying to do everything for this baby and give her the best life possible.
‘She’s doing wonderful. She literally is my miracle baby, and we just love her so much.’
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