Vanessa McLeod was halfway through her pregnancy when doctors discovered that her daughter’s arms and hands had not formed properly. They urged her to end the pregnancy, but she refused. Now, the Canadian mom says she can’t imagine life without 2-year-old Ivy! She’s hoping their wonderful story will help knock down cultural stigmas around limb (四肢) differences.
Ivy is a happy, energetic child who has no idea that she looks a little different from other people. Her mom knows this won’t last; eventually, the little girl will have questions about why she has no hands and others do. But for now, she’s found ways to adapt to her challenges with gusto. “Her favorite thing to do is color, and she just uses her toes to hold the markers (马克笔), so she has just learned to do things differently,” Vanessa said.
Vanessa thought adopting a dog with special needs might be a good way to show Ivy that limb differences are a normal part of life, so their family started looking for little dogs who fit the bill. By a stroke of fate, they located one right away!
Lucky is a dog who was born right in their county. She’s missing most of her right leg, making her a perfect companion for Ivy. “You know you were born that way but different is beautiful, and this dog was also born that way and that is also a beautiful thing and I just think it would be a magical bond,” Vanessa said.
They adopted Lucky, and together, they’re already speaking out to encourage others not to view disabilities as “sad or something to be pitied”. The mom said she wishes the doctors who had urged her to end the pregnancy knew that different is beautiful. “I wish they would have told me that we would find support within the limb difference community, within the disability community,” she wrote on Facebook.
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