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
S.L. Wykes
Mercury News
__________
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
