A 5-month-old little girl with a 2% survival rate is beating the odds

SIOUX CITY, Iowa (KTIV/Gray News) - The parents of a 5-month-old girl with a rare genetic condition believe their daughter is a miracle because of the medical challenges she has already survived.

Millie James Dwyer was born in January 2026 by cesarean section after doctors discovered fetal hydrops, a rare, life-threatening condition where abnormal fluid builds up in multiple areas of a baby’s body.

In Millie’s case, it was triggered by Turner syndrome, a rare genetic condition caused by a partially or completely missing X chromosome in girls.

“Something I never thought would happen to us,” said Dylan Dwyer, Millie’s dad. “You never think you’re gonna have the sick kid, but it just gets thrown at you and you just gotta figure it out day by day.”

Turner syndrome carries a devastating reality: a 98% miscarriage or stillbirth rate. Only 2% survive.

Millie is that 2%.

“When she was in the womb, she had a cystic hygroma behind her neck, and that kind of migrated to her stomach,” said Tayla Schager, Millie’s mom.

A cystic hygroma is a benign tumor filled with fluid that forms because of a lymphatic system blockage. The tumor caused Millie’s bowels to perforate in the womb, causing her tiny stomach to swell to 40 centimeters around.

“They drained 100 milliliters out of her stomach at first. They could have gone more than that, but that could have sent her body into shock ultimately,” Schager said.

Two weeks after she was born, on January 20, Millie’s heart nearly stopped. In total, she and her family spent 115 days in the neonatal intensive care unit at a hospital in Omaha, Nebraska.

“We’re very lucky to have her. She’s really a miracle baby,” Schager said.

Millie now faces challenges few other babies ever will, including a horseshoe kidney, an extra valve in her heart, future growth hormone treatments, infertility and a feeding tube.

But she is surrounded by love – from her parents and her two big brothers, Cash and Henry – who have shared every frightening moment and every hard-won step forward.

“She’s playing with her toys. She gets so excited. You smile at her, she smiles back. She coos just like a normal baby,” Schager said.

Millie and her family never stopped fighting, and their journey isn’t over. But through every setback and every small victory, one thing has carried them through: each other.