On June 29, 2016, Sara Baughman and her family welcomed a precious baby boy into the world. They named him Myles Kaleb Baughman.

To Sara, Myles was perfect in every way. She was only 19 years old, attending college full-time and working a full-time job, but she was excited to begin a new chapter of her life with her beautiful baby boy.

Then, just a few weeks later, Sara began noticing that something wasn’t right.

Myles struggled to drink even two ounces of milk. It could take him hours to finish a feeding, and much of the milk would simply spill from his mouth. Sara also noticed that his eyes seemed to shake from side to side.

Soon, he began throwing his head backward and crying intensely.

During Myles’s one-month checkup on August 2, 2016, doctors became extremely concerned. They immediately sent the family to Cincinnati Children’s Hospital.

Myles had lost so much weight that he was now below his birth weight. He was admitted to the hospital because he was failing to gain weight and grow as expected.

Sara and her family had no idea that this hospital would become their home for nearly four months as they fought day after day for their tiny son’s health.

On the second day, doctors performed an ultrasound of Myles’s head. The scan showed swelling in his brain.

An MRI was ordered soon afterward.

After spending about three hours in the MRI machine, Myles was finally finished. Sara and her family stepped away to eat dinner, hoping to take a brief break from the frightening uncertainty surrounding their baby.

But their dinner was interrupted.

Three doctors and several nurses entered the room and asked the family to sit down.

Then came the words that would change their lives forever:

“Your child has a tumor.”

Sara was stunned.

Her baby was only five weeks old.

How could a newborn have a tumor in his brain?

Why was this happening to her son?

At that moment, doctors could not yet tell the family exactly where the tumor was located or whether it was cancerous.

Sara remembered sitting there almost unable to process what she had just heard. Her world seemed to stop.

She began searching for information about brain tumors in young children, desperate to understand what was happening to her baby.

One diagnosis kept appearing in her research: Diffuse Intrinsic Pontine Glioma, or DIPG.

The information she found was terrifying. DIPG is a highly aggressive childhood brain tumor that develops in the brain stem, an area responsible for many essential functions. Because of its location, it is extremely difficult to treat surgically.

Sara prayed that this was not what her little boy had.

But Myles’s condition continued to deteriorate.

A few days later, after another MRI, he returned to his room struggling severely with his breathing. Doctors rushed him to the intensive care unit, where he needed mechanical breathing support.

Sara was terrified.

On August 15, doctors performed a biopsy of the tumor. Because Myles was only a few weeks old, the procedure carried significant risks.

But Myles made it through.

Two days later, on August 17, the family received the diagnosis they had been dreading.

It was DIPG.

Myles was just five weeks old.

Doctors explained that he was among the youngest children they had ever seen diagnosed with the disease. DIPG was more commonly diagnosed in older children, often between the ages of 5 and 9.

Myles was also critically ill. His body was severely swollen, and he developed a blood clot in his leg that created another serious medical concern.

Because he was so young, doctors faced enormous uncertainty about how his body would respond to treatment.

Radiation was commonly used for DIPG, but Myles was far too young for it.

So his medical team decided to try chemotherapy.

On August 22, 2016, at only seven weeks old, Myles received his first chemotherapy treatment.

Then something unexpected happened.

After several rounds of chemotherapy, scans showed that the tumor had shrunk dramatically — to nearly half its previous size.

The tumor was responding.

It was a moment that gave Sara and her family a reason to hope.

By October, Myles had improved enough for doctors to remove his breathing tube. He was eventually transferred out of intensive care and back to the Hematology/Oncology floor.

Although his condition had improved, he continued to struggle with swallowing. Further testing showed that he was having difficulty using his tongue properly, likely because of the tumor’s location and its effect on functions controlled by the brain stem.

Myles continued receiving nutrition through a feeding tube while his doctors monitored his progress.

Finally, after nearly four months in the hospital, the day Sara had been desperately waiting for arrived.

On November 12, 2016, Myles was allowed to go home.

He still needed oxygen and a feeding tube, but he was finally going home with his family.

There had been moments when Sara wasn’t sure whether she would ever get to bring her baby home.

Now, he was finally where he belonged.

And Myles continued to surprise everyone.

About two months after returning home, he was able to stop using oxygen.

Then, in February 2017, Myles accidentally sneezed out his feeding tube. Doctors decided not to replace it immediately.

Within days, he was eating on his own.

Throughout 2017, Myles continued receiving chemotherapy once a month. Each treatment usually meant spending another two or three days in the hospital.

He sometimes became sick and had to face challenges that most children his age never had to experience. But he continued moving forward.

Some milestones took longer for Myles than they did for other children, but he remained determined.

He refused to let the disease define him.

In December 2017, Myles completed all 18 rounds of chemotherapy recommended by his doctors.

Then came another piece of encouraging news.

Follow-up scans showed that the tumor was stable.

Doctors decided to give his body a break and closely monitor him with regular MRI scans.

At first, the family returned for scans every two months. Each appointment brought the same nervous wait for results.

And each time, they received the news they were praying for:

The tumor was still stable.

Months passed.

Then another year.

Myles continued doing remarkably well without additional treatment, something that amazed his doctors.

Eventually, his medical team felt comfortable extending the time between MRI scans to every four months.

For Sara and her family, life began to feel a little more normal.

And then they started planning something they once feared might never happen — Myles’s third birthday.

They had once wondered whether he would even live to see his first birthday.

Now they were planning his third.

Myles absolutely loved Thomas, so the family decided they wanted to take him to Thomas Land in Massachusetts for a special birthday trip.

They wanted to fill his childhood with as many happy memories as possible.

They knew the uncertainty wasn’t completely gone. They understood that if the tumor ever began growing again, Myles might need treatment quickly.

But for the moment, the scans were stable.

Myles was home.

He was growing.

He was smiling.

And he was giving his family something they had once been afraid they might never have: more time together.

For Sara, every ordinary moment with her son became extraordinary.

Every birthday was a gift.

Every smile was precious.

Every day was another reason to be grateful.

Myles had entered the world as a tiny baby facing an unimaginable diagnosis. Yet, against expectations, he continued to fight, grow and surprise the people around him.

To his family, he wasn’t defined by the tumor in his brain.

He was their son.

Their little fighter.

Their miracle