Three-foot-tall mom with genetic disease beats the odds

S.L. Wykes
Mercury News
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Eloysa and Roy Vasquez gazed down at their healthy newborn son Thursday in the neonatal ward at Lucile Packard Children's Hospital, their beaming faces a reminder that every birth is a miracle.
Some births, like Timothy Abraham's, are just a little more miraculous than others.The boy, who has a race-car-shaped bed waiting at home in Tulare, became one of a half-dozen babies delivered in Packard's 15 years to a mother with a condition known as osteogenesis imperfecta type 3.
The genetic disease makes Eloysa Vasquez's bones so brittle that a muscle move could break them. She weighs 37 pounds and has depended on a wheelchair since she was 10. Fewer than 50,000 people in the United States live with her disease.And after two first-term miscarriages, the Vasquezes knew the odds were long for them to one day embrace Timothy.
Only one out of every 25,000 deliveries involves a mom with OI, and far fewer involve moms with the severe type 3 version.``I knew if I tried one more time, it would be worth it,'' said Eloysa, 38.The rarity of OI means many ob-gyns never have the chance to usher a child like Timothy into the world.
Packard doctors first saw Eloysa when she was five months along. Obstetrician James Smith advised her of the dangers.
Feb 10, 2006