This is the boy who is finally going home after spending almost three years of his short life in hospital.

Francesco is the family’s second child to be born with a deadly condition called skeletal dysplasia that claimed the life of his other brother just one week after he was born.

Skeletal dysplasia causes the abnormal development of a baby’s bones, joints, and cartilage. It affects different people in different ways, but in Francesco’s case, it affects his ribs, which means it is harder for his lungs to grow properly.

But now the nearly three-year-old boy from Illinois has finally left the La Rabida Children’s Hospital in Chicago, Illinois, and got to go home for the first time in his life after being born with the rare condition and spending his short life connected to tubes and on a ventilator.

It was a moment that his parents had been waiting for since his birth two years and 10 months ago.

Emanuele Bruno, Francesco’s dad, told local media: “We’re very happy, nervous, tense, scared, overwhelmed, really happy, overjoyed.”

He added: “It’s just a melting pot of emotions.”

Francesco’s mother, Priscilla Bruno, told local media: “They told us [when] he was going to be born, he was only going to live for 30 minutes.”

She added: “It’s really a miracle he’s with us today.”

Emanuele said: “The fact that we are even standing here, almost three years later, talking about him is already a miracle in and of itself, in my opinion.”

Francesco’s condition is reportedly getting better and both his parents have taken classes to help them take care of him.

Priscilla said: “We’re overjoyed and very, very happy and ready to start a new chapter, a new adventure.”