New baby news comes days after shock paralysis

A man has said he found out he was to be a new dad just days after a bleed on the spine left him suddenly paralysed.

Liam Watson, from Leamington Spa, was rushed to hospital in February after getting numbness in his legs and having difficulty breathing.

A week after undergoing surgery the 29-year-old was told his wife Poppy was pregnant with their first child, although it was a bitter-sweet moment, in the knowledge they they would not be able to conceive naturally again.

The couple are now raising funds to adapt their house to allow Liam to play as full a role as possible as a new dad.

Poppy said: "Liam was over the moon, when I told him I was pregnant. The chances are, it's going be quite hard, a lot harder now than what it was, to have a baby again.

"It's almost like this is like a little miracle. And it is realistically, like, it was the last possible chance we could have done this with such ease."

Liam's back pain began after he jacked up his car, but quickly escalated over the following week.

He started to get tingling in his legs when fitting guttering at the top of scaffolding, while working in construction.

"I went back to the site office. I almost fell, but they caught me and sat me down on a bench, called an ambulance," he remembered.

"The ambulance took like an hour to get there and in that time, you know, the numbness had spread from my legs upwards and I was having a lot of trouble breathing."

Now six months on from the spontaneous epidural haematoma, and the surgery that stopped it getting worse, Liam remains paralysed from the chest down.

But during his recovery, finding out his wife was pregnant was an even greater boost, as it came just months after she suffered a miscarriage.

Poppy said their world had changed completely, but they were now looking forward to becoming a family.

"There was a lot of grief, to be honest," she said.

"There's like a definite line between before the injury and after the injury. Obviously it's been made a lot more scary because we found out we were pregnant quite soon afterwards.

"There are some days where you feel really hopeful, and you feel like life will be fine, and they are getting more and more."

Liam's not expected to get the use of his legs back and wife Poppy has set up a GoFundMe page so they can start to plan for some of the challenges having a baby and being in a wheelchair will bring.

The couple want to buy a power attachment for the wheelchair so it can be used off-road and to make it easier to go longer distances.

But, they are also hoping to have some left over to spend on equipment to help Liam look after the baby. Things like a cot where the side can be lowered, adjustable height changing table and a pram that Liam can push too.

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