In midst of all the bad news from Thailand; Ferguson, Missouri; Iraq; and Africa, something positive to remind us of what is important:

Rachelle Friedman was just weeks away from her dream wedding when the unthinkable happened. A playful push on her hen’s night left her with a spinal cord injury – that has paralysed her for life. Rachelle wrote of the incident last year on Mamamia: “In the summer of 2010, at my bachelorette party, one of my best friends playfully pushed me into a pool.” “My head hit the bottom of the pool, and two of my vertebra shattered. The broken vertebra damaged my spinal chord enough to leave me permanently paralyzed from the chest down.”

The devastating accident caused Rachelle and her fiance, 31-year-old Chris Chapman, to push back their wedding while she focused on rehabilitation. While Rachelle eventually wed Chris in July 2011., she had always wanted children – as she told Oprah: Where Are They Now?, immediately after the accident she asked an emergency worker if she’d be able to have a family — and that desire had to be placed on hold following the accident. “(W)e want kids badly… Once we get financially straight we are going to have one,” Rachelle wrote last year. “My issue is I take medication for low blood pressure that I won’t be able to take,” she said.

Now, four years after the horrifying accident, Rachelle and Chris have announced some wonderful news: they’re expecting a child with a help of a surrogate mother.
familyphoto She was paralysed on her hens night. And now, she has some wonderful news. )

The couple announced the happy news on Twitter on August 13 and on Facebook on August 14. She wrote: “We are going to have a baby!! Due date? April 19th.” “We are elated… Thank you so much for the support so far,” she wrote.

News.com.au reports that a university friend of Rachelle’s, Laurel Humes, has offered to be the surrogate mother. “My husband was a sperm donor for some of our friends, a same-sex couple, and that inspired me to think about surrogacy,” Ms Humes, a 31-year-old stay-at-home mother, told People. “I know Chris and Rachelle will be great parents and I can’t wait to see the looks on their faces when they get to hold their baby for the first time,” she said.