Miracle Mom

It's pretty rare that I read something in Parade from the Sunday newspaper worth sharing, but this story made me smile out loud. Enjoy:

When Stacy Wiparina told her family seven years ago that she was pregnant, of course they were excited.

"But then I was also kind of scared," says her mother, Patti Goodman. "Afraid for Stacy getting through a pregnancy, surviving a pregnancy."

Wiparina is tiny and fragile and always has been. She was born with a genetic disorder called Type II spinal muscular atrophy (SMA). She has never walked--she never even crawled as a baby--and she has used a motorized wheelchair since she was 7, when her arms grew too weak to push a manual chair. Because her bones have never borne weight, they are extremely brittle and easily broken. Her spine is twisted by scoliosis, and her lungs are weak and prone to infections. She spends at least a week each year in the hospital fighting pneumonia, and when she was 22 a respiratory infection kept her in a coma from Christmas until Valentine's Day. Her doctors expected her to die.

Carry a baby in that body?

"Everyone always worries about me--except me," Wiparina says. "I just knew things were going to work out."

And they did. Twice. Today, Wiparina, 36, and her husband, Rodney, have two healthy, rambunctious children--J.J., 6, and his sister, Sophie, 4--bounding around their backyard in Centerville, Ohio. "I knew I was going to be a mom," Wiparina says. "It's all I ever wanted."

> Read the full story at Parade.com