Our daughter was 8 months old when we found out we were expecting our son Ward. Life as we knew it was no longer a bubble for our family of 3.
Our son threw us a curve ball at 26 weeks of gestation. Our anatomy scan showed abnormalities. They thought he had clubbed feet, so after a long weekend, we went in for more testing.
It wasn’t clubbed feet. We found out it could either be a 1 in 50,000 chance he had a fatal condition and wouldn’t make it to birth OR he had a 1 in a million condition and just happened to not develop both of his fibula bones.
We did the testing and waited. We celebrated our daughter’s first birthday, Christmas, and New Year before finding out we had a 1 in a million little boy joining us. That was a rough few weeks, to say the least.
Not out of the woods yet, we prayed for this one in a million, knowing it meant amputation of both legs below the knee. We found ourselves hoping we would face an 8-hour surgery to take our baby’s legs, and we got our wish. He was born at 36 weeks due to my high blood pressure, but he was perfect!
We had a perfect baby—a 15-month-old who still didn’t understand sleep. And we thought we were tired before!
Either way, we knew the decision was coming, and it wasn’t just our lives we were making this decision for. We knew we had four people to make this decision for, with our son being number one.
Ward was 9 months old when we changed his life. He had no say, no idea what we were doing, and truthfully, we didn’t either. With the help of incredible doctors, we knew it was the right choice for us.
On December 28th, 2021, we amputated our son’s legs. All of our lives changed that day, but only as a family.
Our lives aren’t normal. We do lots of physical therapy, and it’s not a Monday if someone isn’t yelling, ‘Where are your legs?’ (It’s me; it’s always me.)
Our family cheers about small victories and cries about things that aren’t in our control, but we’re here and we’re making it.
Ward is 2.5 now and thriving! He has a long road ahead, but seeing what he can accomplish in such a short time reminds me every day how strong he is and how we will all take life one step at a time.
Credit goes to the original owner…. 😍😍😍