Spina Bifida Awareness Day 26 Jonah's Story

Dear Life,

Here is a little one from our online group.  He's adorable!!!!  Introducing Jonah!!

I can remember the beginning of my pregnancy, sitting in

 that very first doctor’s office with all the wonderful 

thoughts running through my head that every first time 

parent must have. Will it be a girl or a boy? Will I be a good 

mom? Is he/she going to look like me? I never thought I 

would have much more important things to think about

 over the next nine months.

 The doctor had asked me many questions that first day but the one that stuck out to me the most was if I wanted to do any testing for birth defects and my answer was pretty straight forward, “No! No matter what could happen this is my baby and nothing could change that!” God must have decided to test my faith because nine weeks later (19 weeks along) I was sitting in a totally different doctor’s office receiving the news that my son has “myelomeningocele” a type of Spina Bifida. Those dreaded words…”There’s a defect” were ringing in my ears and my eyes were filling with tears as I sat there in shock. I finally got the strength to mouth to my husband “that’s BAD” and let him take it from there. We left the office with little information on what the future held for our son and walked out to our pickup. I dialed the number to my mom’s house and she answered happily, waiting to know the sex of her newest grandbaby but little did she know that wasn’t the biggest news we received. I told her it was a boy and handed the phone to my husband as I again turned into a mess of tears. 

Now our son Jonah is almost 16 months old! He has hit almost every milestone on time or ahead of time. Sat up around 5 months and crawled around 7 months. He is super intelligent and his physical therapist believes we can have him walking around Christmas time.

 His tiny scar on his back, shunt and AFOs are the only reminders we have that our son was born with Spina Bifida. He is your typical toddler or as I like to call him our little “Tornado”.  Jonah having Spina Bifida changed our lives but we wouldn’t change Jonah for the world! 

 Looking back I am always saying “I wish I knew then what I know now” because it would have saved me many sleepless nights and tears. If you are pregnant with a special needs child please don’t waste your time worrying or wondering why and remember that God chose you to parent this amazing child for a reason!