For most parents, witnessing their baby’s first steps is a moment of great excitement. But when Claudine and Dave Fitzgibbon’s son Harvey first walked, their dominant emotion was relief.

« Seeing him get up and take those first few steps was quite amazing, » says Dave who, with his wife, endured years of trauma in the hope of giving their five-year-old daughter, Eliza, a sibling.

In August 2016, a team of medical specialists at the Mater Mothers’ Hospital in Brisbane performed groundbreaking surgery on Harvey while he was still in the womb to correct a defect caused by spina bifida.

His parents were told Harvey might never be able to walk.

 

Now, more than a year and a half since the risky operation, and a year since Australian Story first met the couple, they are quietly watching their happy little boy meet milestones. « As he progressed, it was like tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, » Dave says. « Bowel, bladder, brain, ventricles, legs, feet, muscle tone, so it was just a huge amount of relief. »

Harvey took his first steps in March, a few months after his first birthday.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-05-07/groundbreaking-spina-bifida-surgery-a-success-one-year-on/9722676