A woman has been forced to deal with cruel comments online after proudly showing off her baby who lives with a quadriplegic limb deficiency.
Mum, Bonnie Cox, was stunned to learn during her 20-week anatomy scan that her baby failed to develop limbs which sent her spiralling to what went wrong in her pregnancy.
After learning of the news, Bonnie and her husband, Tyler, both had their genetics tested; with both coming back as normal, her pregnancy was put down as a ‘complete fluke’, according to Bonnie.
The mum from Browns Summit, North Carolina, USA, said: “There have been negative comments of people saying things like, ‘it was cruel for you to even have this child’ and ‘he’ll have no quality of life’, and that’s simply just not true.
“Because all of our genetic testing came back normal, they think that this was just a complete fluke.
“We found out about his limb deficiency at our 20-week anatomy scan and up until that point, it had been a totally normal pregnancy.”
Bonnie confirmed that her baby Bryson, did not have any sort of syndrome or disease – he was simply just without the right stage of limbs.
The couple were left with an immediate shock feeling while also pondering confusion after learning about their baby’s deficiency.
Bonnie and her husband were asking themselves how their baby would manage the simplest of tasks, like how will he feed himself for example.
Her pregnancy journey occurred the same time as her friends – forcing Bonnie to painfully ask herself why everybody else has ‘perfectly healthy babies’.
Bryson, who is dubbed as a ‘starfish baby’ by his parents has the upper parts of his limbs on his arms and legs, but nothing else below that.
The limb difference is considered as very rare as Bonnie revealed having a quad limb deficiency was ‘unheard of’.
The family are also in the process for getting prosthetics fitted for Bryson’s lower limbs, while regarding his upper limbs, Bonnie revealed they plan for him to have adaptive prosthetics.
The couple do intend on having more children in the future, as Bonnie brushed aside any concerns of their second child having a similar deficiency.
Speaking about his limb deficiency, Bonnie explained: “He doesn’t have a syndrome or a disease that would go along with the limb deficiency, so he’s otherwise completely healthy.
“My husband and I got genetically tested, and everything came back negative, so it was just a completely random thing.
She added: “He’s got his full humerus in both arms and his full femurs in both legs, but he doesn’t have anything below those.
“They didn’t give me any specific odds but it’s extremely rare for a child to obviously be born with one limb difference. So, for him to be born with four was basically unheard of.
“I hope it doesn’t affect him other than being able to show everybody that he can do anything.
“He will get prosthetics and we’re in that process right now for lower limb prosthetics.”