In Vitro Fertilization and a quadriplegic man's journey to parenthood

When Kenny Salvini first woke up in the ICU at Harborview Medical Center 17 years ago and doctors told him that his snow skiing accident caused a C3-4 complete spinal cord injury that would leave him a quadriplegic for the rest of his life, he only had one question: Can I still have children? “Their hesitant response in the affirmative gave me all the hope I needed,” recalls Kenny. “I didn’t put much thought into the actual process until a decade later, when the blue-eyed occupational therapy student I was flirting with said her greatest ambition in life was to be a mother.”

It didn’t feel real until I heard the first cry echo out from the other side of the blue curtain in the operating room. After a nearly two and a half year journey, my wife, Claire, and I were finally parents to a healthy little girl, and I was mere seconds away from the moment all my dad-friends had been hyping up for months, when I would first lay eyes on my child and the whole world would change.

You can read the rest of Kenny and Claire’s experience with in vitro fertilization following SCI in New Mobility magazine HERE.