Born at 25 weeks, the little baby Ward required the use of numerous machines to support him as he fought to survive. He was transferred four days after he was born to Nationwide Children’s Hospital to undergo a procedure and remained in the hospital’s NICU fighting for his life for the next 107 days. ‘There were two very scary moments that stand out among the rest. The first was when they did his first brain scan looking for bleeding. There are 4 grades, 1-4 with 4 being the worst. The results came back and he had a grade 2 on one side, and a grade 4 on the other.” the baby’s father, Benjamin, said.
He continued: “I cried and prayed the whole way down. The bleeds could lead to severe problems down the road. He may not be able to walk. He may have cerebral palsy. He may be mentally handicapped. The list goes on and on. When I got there we just embraced and cried together. He looked exactly the same. He had no idea that some test was done. He was still Ward. I felt so bad for him. It wasn’t his fault. He couldn’t do anything to fix it. We couldn’t do anything to fix it. The doctors couldn’t do anything to fix it. It was a horrible feeling. All we could do was pray.”
He spent 107 days in the neonatal intensive care unit and his parents were unsure at times if he would survive, but Ward overcame obstacle after obstacle. Today, he’s a big brother to Jude, age 10, and loves to play hockey, enjoys math class best at school, and wants to be a paleontologist when he grows up (SEE PHOTO). Though he struggled with vomiting as a toddler, he now has no issues at all from being born so young.
The family has said that the first year of Ward’s life was difficult — spiritually, emotionally, and physically. But it was all worth it. They also allowed Live Action to alter and share the video of baby Ward in order to help educate Americans on the truth of life inside the womb and the fact that preborn children are human beings, not mere “tissue.”