A mum had 'her world turned upside down' after doctors discovered her unborn baby had a one in a million condition 'completely by accident'.
Ebby Tidswell was 28 weeks pregnant when her daughter Rosie was diagnosed with Vein of Galen Malformation (VGM), the Liverpool Echo reports.
The rare condition, which affects one in one million children born in the UK every year, occurs during pregnancy and causes abnormal connections between blood vessels in the brain.
The 30-year-old said the discovery of the condition was "completely accidental", with medics unable to tell her what this would mean for Rosie until she was born, due to symptoms varying greatly from one case to the next.
Ebby, from North Wales, told the ECHO: "I was measuring big so they sent me for a growth scan just at my local hospital and it was then when it was picked up.
"It was completely accidental that it was picked up.
"I remember one of the first times we went to Liverpool Women's Hospital, they sat us down in the room and they said there was going to be three possible outcomes.
"There was a 3rd of a chance that she would come out and she would be absolutely fine, there was a 3rd of a chance she would come out and she'd have developmental delays or brain damage and quite severe disabilities and there was a 3rd of a chance that she wouldn't survive at all."
Rosie was born at Liverpool Women's Hospital by C-section and at just 12 hours old she was transferred to Alder Hey Children's Hospital for close observation.
Ebby said: "She was born stable and she didn't really seem to have any problems in terms of the Vein of Galen Malformation.
"I think it was on day nine we were told to take her home. We were going to Alder Hey every or so just for scans and things."
Rosie was ten weeks old when she was taken to have her first operation after the results of a scan showed the condition was putting pressure on her heart and she was going into the early stages of heart failure.
The surgery was a success and Rosie has since had another operation at six months old but she is now a "happy, healthy and smart" three-year-old.
Ebby said: "They're absolutely amazed with how well she's doing. She doesn't really have any developmental delays, she is meeting all of her milestones.
"She's not poorly in any way, her heart is absolutely fine and they hope the [VGM] could close down on its own because every year that she's been for an MRI it is getting smaller.
"We're just absolutely amazed. I say like a million times a day of how proud we are and how grateful to have somewhere like Alder Hey that have done what they've done for her.
"She's just like any other normal three year old that you'd expect.
"She's happy, she's healthy and in terms of the intelligence she has it's absolutely crazy how amazing she is because obviously we expected developmental delays but she's never had anything hold her back, she just gets on with things."
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