Minnesota parents are overjoyed to finally be hearing their three-year-old daughter's voice for the first time.
Zoey Ellis, of Coon Rapids, was born in March 2015 with an extremely rare disorder that blocked off her windpipe and left her unable to speak.
For the past three years, Zoey used sign language, squeaks and clicking her tongue to communicate with her parents, Amberlee and Jeremy.
This past summer, doctors in Ohio approved Zoey for a surgery that would widen her windpipe using cartilage from her rib cage so she could speak.
Now, not only is Zoey surviving and thriving, she's speaking. In an interview with DailyMail.com, her mother described the heartbreak of thinking her daughter would never say a word and the overwhelming joy of hearing 'Mama' and 'Dada' for the first time.
Zoey Ellis, three (left and right), was born in March 2015 with a rare disorder known as CHAOS, or Congenital High Airway Obstruction Syndrome. It is a condition in which her windpipe was blocked and voice box was fused while she was in utero, leaving her unable to speak
When doctors first told Zoey's parents, Amberlee and Jeremy, about the condition, they said she had no chance of survival. Pictured: Zoey as a newborn
'I was 20 weeks pregnant and we went in to find out she was a girl,' Amberlee told DailyMail.com
'They told me over the phone they thought she had a disorder, but they were going to have to send me to a specialist.'
Zoey was diagnosed with CHAOS, or Congenital High Airway Obstruction Syndrome, a rare disorder in which a fetus's windpipe and voice box are blocked.
Scientists are unsure of what causes it, but believe it may be from the airway being narrowed or part of the trachea is missing, according to UCSF Benioff Children's Hospital.
Fetuses with the disorder have enlarged lungs, fluid in their stomaches and potential heart failure due to airway obstruction.
Treatment depends on how severe the condition is. If the blockage is minimal, minor surgery is needed to correct it.
If the blockage is severe, babies need a trach tube - a breathing tube placed through directly into the windpipe - inserted after birth and several surgeries to correct the condition.
According to Benioff Children's Hospital, in extreme cases such as where the swelling of the lungs could damage the heart, doctors may perform surgery before birth.
'Every doctor we saw said she had no chance of survival,' Amberlee said.
Of the 50 cases that have been reported since 1989, doctors told her that only seven had survived.
'They told me she would need surgery right when she was born, she would have no quality after she was born,' Amberlee said. 'I was just devastated.'
Amberlee and Jeremy were prepared to go visit specialists out of state at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia when a doctor from Minneapolis reached out to the couple and asked to talk to them.
