WASHINGTON - A local couple is getting ready for their first child, something they never thought they'd see because of a devastating accident that left one man a quadriplegic.

Rob Wall is a quadriplegic, and his wife, Amanda, is six months pregnant.

"I can't wait," Robert said. "We are getting back to doing something that we were planning to do before this whole injury happened."

The Walls married in 2004 in Leesburg, Va., and less than a year later Rob broke his neck in a diving accident.

"I fractured the 4th, 5th and 6th vertebrate and basically had no movement from my shoulders down," Rob said.

Dreams of having a family were shattered, or so they thought. I always wanted to be a mom. "I used to put little pillows in my shirt when I was like 8 and pretend," Amanda recalled. "A lot of my friends started to get pregnant around that time, and I was happy for them but not really."

But that was then. Now, Rob can walk on his own with a little grit and determination. He can even drive a special van.

And, suddenly, the couple found themselves talking 'family' again - all because of modern medicine.

It turns out just because Rob is a quadriplegic didn't mean they couldn't have kids. They just had to do some things differently.

At Shady Grove Fertility Center, Dr. Naveed Kahn surgically removed sperm from rob's testicles, and placed an immature single sperm without a tale into one of Amanda's eggs - a procedure nicknamed, ICSI.

It worked on the first try.

"This has completely revolutionized the care for men with--not just quadriplegics--but all sorts of male factors; where there are problems with low counts, abnormal shapes, low motility...we can just take that sperm and put it right into the egg," Dr. Naveed said.
The couple also started a nonprofit for spinal cord injury survivors. Their baby is due on Christmas day.

"We didn't want this injury to take away our ability to be parents," Rob said. "I am finally able to make her happy in some way, and feel like there's some normalcy again."

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