McCall's Article, June 1998

My paralyzed husband gave us a child

By Debra Wallace

Doctors doubted the Friedkins would ever have another baby.

But the couple knew love and determination can overcome even the toughest obstacles.

Cuddling her favorite doll, 14-month-old Bennett Molly Friedkin toddles across the living room floor to her father, Shawn. "Da! Da! Da!" she says, her huge blue eyes gazing happily at him. No sooner does Shawn scoop her up into his lap than she's off again, selecting a fluffy teddy bear to present to her adoring daddy.

It's the sort of touching scene that's repeated every day in homes across America. But for Shawn Friedkin and his wife, Lisa, it's nothing short of a miracle: Not long ago doctors weren't certain if Shawn would live, much less father another child.

"Seeing our daughter nestled in his lap is more wonderful than you can ever imagine," Lisa says, tears of joy in her eyes.

Shawn and Lisa, both now 34, were college sweethearts at Syracuse University in New York and have been inseparable since they met at a fraternity party in 1983. "He asked me to dance," Lisa recalls, "and I told him no. Then he said, "You don't want to break my heart, do you?" They soon learned they had a lot in common: the desire to have a good home, a successful business and, most important, a loving family.

"I have a brother, and Shawn has two sisters," Lisa says. "We talked often about wanting to duplicate our childhoods by having at least two kids running around."

A happy beginning, marred by unbelievable tragedy

They married on November 21, 1987; their daughter Sydney, now eight, was born three years later, after they'd moved to Boca Raton, Fla., so Shawn could join his family's aluminum business. In the meantime Lisa settled into motherhood.

"Everything was ideal," she says, recalling Sunday-morning pancake breakfasts. "We though we would just sort of walk into the sunset like in those old black-and-white films."

But the Friedkin's happiness didn't last long. On March 12, 1992, while driving back from a client call, Shawn swerved out of a truck's path. His car skidded across the highway and flipped over several times.

Shawn was airlifted to a Miami hospital for emergency back surgery; Lisa and his parents rushed to his side. What the doctors told Shawn's anxious family was horrible: The impact of the crash had crushed his spinal cord, and he was paralyzed from the chest down. Within a 24-hour period doctors who had at first feared for Shawn's life told him he'd never walk again.

The news was devastating for everyone. "In the beginning, I was like a zombie," Lisa says. "I would walk into his hospital room and put on a happy face; then, when no one was looking, I would go back into the hallway, lie on the floor and cry."

"All I wanted to do was to go under the blankets with my mother and have her comfort me. I said, 'Mom, I'm 28 years old. What am I going to do?' She told me, 'You're going to live your life and do what you have to do to get through this.'"

Shawn went home after three months to begin a year of intensive outpatient rehabilitation. But the couple was dealing with emotional as well as physical scars. "For weeks we fought over anything and everything," Lisa recalls. "A lot of everyday stuff fell on my shoulders. I had to change the lightbulbs and take out the garbage, things most husbands do.

Sometimes Shawn would say, 'Lisa, help me reach something,' and I didn't want to have to do it."

"We were living in the same house," Shawn recalls, "but we weren't talking. I knew Lisa had no intention of leaving. But it frustrated her that I wasn't the same guy she had married. I was more needy. With Lisa's prodding, I learned how to be more independent."

The Friedkins saw a therapist and, with her assistance, rekindled the spark that had drawn them together. They began going out on Saturday nights again, heading to their favorite restaurant and discussing the future. "That helped a great deal," Lisa says.

Work and fatherhood: One dreams ends but another begins

Shawn tried to resume his work as a general manager for family's business, but the long commute and other problems made it too difficult. "The factory and the businesses I visited where not wheelchair accessible," he says. "One time they had to use a forklift to get me in the front do. I had a lot of back pain, and I couldn't sit up for long periods of time. So I left." Now Shawn manages the family investments from his home.

But an even bigger challenge--and a bigger potential heartbreak--lay ahead for the couple. They did not want Sydney to be an only child. In fact, they had been talking about having a second child just a few months before the accident.

"We thought it would be sad for Sydney to go through life not having a sister or brother," Lisa says. "Having children is your future. It's your continuation, your legacy, your bit of immortality. I never pictured myself with just one child."

Shawn agrees. "Clearly our children are the number-one priority in our lives," he says. "When we first got married I thought I'd like to have four kids."

But now it was doubtful the couple would ever complete their family. "I was very naive after the accident," Shawn admit. "I knew I couldn't walk, and I could live with that. But whether we could have another child is what we urgently wanted to know." Their search for an answer led them to the Male Fertility Research Program, part of the Miami Project to Cure Paralysis, at the University of Miami.

Just 11 years ago a man in Shawn's condition would have had no chance at fathering a baby.

"Before 1987 most men with spinal-cord injuries were told they couldn't have children," explains Charles Lynne, M.D., a urologist with the program Shawn consulted. Recent breakthroughs have made that goal possible, though the process is still prolonged and difficult: Because the nervous system of a spinal-cord-injury victim has been traumatized, it often takes a year for male victims to start producing healthy sperm, and not every method of extracting sperm proves successful.

At the university's program, researchers working with Shawn tried a technique called electroejaculation. With this method--which has been used on livestock for 70 years but has only recently been adapted for men with spinal-cord injuries--an electrically charged probe is inserted in the patient's rectum, and a low-voltage current causes ejaculation; the patient has no sexual sensation.

By late 1993 Shawn was producing consistently healthy sperm samples. But the couple was only halfway there. The next step was impregnating Lisa. During the next two years Lisa and Shawn went through so many medical procedures that her chart alone was "as big as the Manhattan yellow pages," says Lisa's fertility specialist, Wayne Maxson, M.D.

Maxson tried moth intrauterine insemination (in which sperm is injected directly into the prospective mother's uterus) and advanced in-vitro fertilization, called ICSI (intracytoplasmic sperm injection), in which a sperm is inserted into an egg in a test tube and injected into the uterus.

The first in-vitro fertilization, in March 1995, produced a single embryo that was transferred to Lisa's womb. But it didn't develop. Five months later the doctors tried three additional intrauterine inseminations, each without success.

Lisa found the disappointments almost unbearable. "After each failed attempt I would tell Shawn, 'I can't do this again. Never!'" she says. "But somehow I always seemed to pull myself together for another try."

Throughout the ordeal the couple's close friends, parents and in-laws rallied around them, offering moral support, running errands and caring for Sydney. Still, the defeats were bitter--and costly. By now their medical bills had reached a staggering $45,000; the money had to come from their savings since their health insurance did not cover fertility treatments. (Shawn is still seeking reimbursement from his workers' compensation insurance.)

In March 1996, after yet another unsuccessful in-vitro attempt, Lisa decided to give it one more try. Maxson retrieved 11 eggs and fertilized 9 of them, and another specialist, David Hoffman, M.D., implanted five of them. After all this time the couple hardly dared to hope.

The good news they had been waiting for came on March 14.

Lisa was having lunch in a restaurant when her cellular phone rang. "It was Julie, the lab technician," Lisa says. "She told me, 'You're pregnant!' I just sat and cried."

Lisa immediately called Shawn. "We were totally in shock. We'd wanted this so badly we couldn't believe it. I was afraid to get excited after everything we'd been through."

The two were so cautious, in fact, that at first they didn't get a crib or pick out baby clothes. But as each test came back with proof of a healthy, developing baby, they felt optimistic enough to share their news with their families. Little Sydney was especially excited. "We let her feel the baby move and kick," Lisa recalls. "Ever since Sydney was about three years old, she'd told us that she wanted a sister."

The arrival of Bennett Molly, the baby who beat the odds

At 2 a.m. on November 22, 1996, Lisa was awakened by contractions. An hour later she knew she was in labor, and she called her parents, who live in New Jersey. "Start driving," she said. Shawn's mother came over to put Sydney on the school bus a few hours later as Shawn and Lisa headed for the hospital.

That afternoon, with Shawn seated in his wheelchair in the delivery room, a healthy baby girl came into the world. Shawn, who can move his arms, cut the umbilical cord and handed Bennett Molly to his sobbing wife. "From the moment we saw her, we knew what we had gone through was worth it," he says. "The pain and bad memories faded away."

The Friedkins had achieved their goal, but there was still work to be done. Shawn and Lisa decided to start a foundation to fund medical research, Stand Among Friends, or SAF (Shawn's initials), aimed at creating a better quality of life for people with neurological disorders, including spinal-cord injuries. The foundation, which is now a year old, has raised $225,000. Earlier this year the Friedkins presented the first donation, a $20,000 check, to the place that gave them hope their dream could come true: the Miami Project to Cure Paralysis. All the money will be used to benefit the Male Fertility Research Program.

Despite the permanence of Shawn's injury, he and Lisa rejoice in their life. "I have Lisa, and I have two daughters to teach and nurture," Shawn says. "I'm very happy."

His wife echoes that thought. "I have this incredible husband and two terrific children," Lisa says. "I feel truly blessed. If our work with the foundation can improve the quality of life for other couple, that will be the second-sweetest gift of all."