Mitch's Birth | February 27, 1985

This was the first time I was able to hold Mitch. He was
over 3 weeks old. Even at this young age, he was already
a Wisconsin sports fan.

Mitch was born on a cold February day at a small primary care hospital in Southwest Wisconsin.

Even though I had prenatal testing, we did not know anything was wrong until he was born. The delivery room was full of people, noise, and movement. I had been pushing for over an hour when finally he was delivered and suddenly, a hush fell over the room as though a switch was flipped. Mitch was born with a birth defect called spina bifida.

Spina bifida occurs within the first four weeks of pregnancy, before many women are aware that they are pregnant. For some unexplained reason, the embryo's neural tube (which develops into the brain, spinal cord, and vertebral column) fails to form properly, which results in varying degrees of permanent damage to the spinal column and the nervous system.

In the United States, approximately 1,500 infants are born with spina bifida each year.The level of involvement relates to the size and location of the defect along the spinal column. Seventy-five percent of children who are born with spina bifida will have a lumbar-sacral level defect, which are the lower areas of the spinal column. Twenty-five percent of children will have defects in the thoracic or the upper thoracic-cervical region. The defect may be limited to one vertebra, or, it may involve several vertebrae.

Mitch's lesion started at T2 (just below his neck) and ran to this sacrum (the lowest part of the spinal cord). We were told few infants born with lesions as high and as large as Mitch's rarely lived beyond the first few years of life. We were so lucky to have such a dedicated team of people caring for him.