Quadriplegic embraces motherhood
DEMOTTE, Ind. — As each of her children grew inside her womb, Joni Vanderwoude felt nothing — not the fluttering first kicks in the beginning, not the bulging of her belly as it stretched to the size of a basketball, not the piercing contractions of labor that usually signal it's time.
A car accident 16 years ago left Vanderwoude paralyzed from the neck down, unable to walk, cough or even scratch her own nose without someone to do what her own body could not. But Vanderwoude, of DeMotte, has never dwelled on the limitations of being a person with quadriplegia. Two years after the accident, she married her high school sweetheart. Four years after that they began trying to have children — a medical possibility for most women who suffer from spinal cord injury, despite what people might assume.
Today, Vanderwoude, 36, is the proud mother of three healthy children whom she conceived with her husband and delivered: 6-year-old Jacqueline, who covers the kitchen counter with Legos; 2-year-old Ryleigh, who performs somersaults in the living room; and 6-week-old Zachary.
Pregnancy for women with paralysis is still uncommon. Vanderwoude, who delivered her children at Northwestern Memorial's Prentice Women's Hospital, is the only mother with quadriplegia her doctor has treated in the last decade. Carrying babies in a paralyzed woman's already challenged body comes with risks, including dangerous blood clots and high blood pressure.
But doctors and spinal cord injury researchers say Vanderwoude is an inspiring example of how advances in fetal medicine, adaptive technology — such as strollers designed to be pushed by someone in a wheelchair — and online support from social media and websites have made it possible for more women with paralysis to enjoy the beauty of motherhood, which often calls on women to draw on strength they might not realize they have.
“I can't physically grab them, or pick them up,” Vanderwoude said on a recent afternoon as Zachary slept with his ear to her heart. “But just being here, and loving them and being there for them — that's being a mom for me.”
Living with paralysis
When a person suffers a spinal cord injury, the communication pathway from the brain to the muscles is interrupted, causing paralysis. Vanderwoude was 20 years old and on her way to play piano at a church service when her car left the road and crashed into a drainage ditch in her rural Indiana hometown, 60 miles southeast of Chicago. She wasn't wearing a seat belt and was thrown from the car, causing her neck to break in two places, she said.
Doctors told her family and then-fiance Jason Vanderwoude that if she survived the first 72 hours, she would be paralyzed from the neck down. She could no longer kick a soccer ball, attend college or play piano for hours as she had loved to do before the accident.During the next two years, through extensive rehabilitation, she gained back some use of her biceps, as well as minimal movement in her right wrist. But the progress stopped there. Today, without feeling or use of her limbs and core muscles, another person must turn her over at night so she doesn't get bedsores. When she wakes up, she needs help with a two-hour process that includes helping her shower, changing her catheter bag, brushing her teeth and changing clothes.Three days a week, Joni Vanderwoude gets assistance from aides funded by Medicaid. The rest of the week, the wheelchair-accessible house Jason Vanderwoude designed and built mostly himself bustles with activity as volunteers from the Vanderwoudes' church, Joni's parents — who live on the same property — and other family members take turns helping.Joni and Jason Vanderwoude, who consider themselves deeply religious people, say they are blessed to have so much support, and that Joni is still able to talk and laugh with family.In time, she learned to operate a motorized wheelchair and draw with the help of a special writing tool. Today, using special tools, she can mix brownies, fold the laundry and feed herself a bowl of orange slices with flicks of her wrist. She has learned to rely on helpers or her older children for tasks such as changing diapers or popping a pacifier back in the baby's mouth. She's able to feed the baby every two hours — even through the night — with her breast milk. Sometimes, her husband or an aide positions Zachary on her lap to breast-feed directly. Other times, the helpers hook up Vanderwoude to a breast pump.Practicing patience“I try to have patience. Everything I do, someone's got to be my hands and feet,” said Vanderwoude, who credits her husband, children and family with being unwavering in their support. “But I want to be able to do it myself. That's one of the hardest things.”Her family, especially her husband, sends the credit back to her.“She has been, by far, the strongest person through this all,” Jason Vanderwoude said. “Don't get me wrong, there's days it just plain stinks, where it's hard not to go, 'Why did this happen?' ... But she takes it with a grain of salt. It's life — and here we are.”
