‘We know how lucky we are every day’... Co Antrim couple left in wheelchairs after separate accidents tell how IVF gave them a baby boy
We are both quite private people, although we did speak about our first failed pregnancy
Stafford and Jean Lynn are among 10 NI couples revealing all about their relationship for a brilliant new UTV series, With This Ring, which starts this Thursday night. They tell
Stephanie Bell why they are living fuller lives since their accidents and about the joy baby Harrison has brought
Co Antrim couple Stafford and Jean Lynn are set to inspire people across Northern Ireland with their incredibly positive approach to living with a disability.
The couple both sustained spinal injuries in accidents when they were younger which left them paralysed from the waist down.
While everything they knew changed dramatically overnight, looking back today they both believe their lives have been fuller because they are in wheelchairs.
Well-known to the local disabled community because of their regular appearance in the magazine Ability NI, the rest of the province is now set to meet this incredible couple thanks to a new UTV series starting this week.
Stafford (50) and Lynn (30) are among 10 local couples who opened up about married life for the series With This Ring, which starts on Thursday night.
The pair, who live in Templepatrick, met at a wheelchair tennis tournament nine years ago and started to date when Stafford, a wheelchair consultant, measured Lynn for a new chair.
They tied the knot in a romantic wedding ceremony on Lusty Beg Island in Fermanagh in December 2015.
Since then they have come through the emotional rollercoaster of IVF and after a first failed attempt were fortunate second time round to become the proud parents of 11-month-old Harrison.
Stafford also has three children by his previous marriage — Sarah (29), Ashley (22) and Stafford (20), as well as grandson Oliver, who is two.
A vivacious couple, they live life to the full, love travelling and are now enjoying being parents to their son.
Stafford runs his own second-hand car business and is also a professional drone photographer, while Jean works full-time as a researcher for The Cedar Foundation, a charity that supports people living with a disability.
Jean was a keen horsewoman taking part in a qualifier for the Ireland events team when she came off her mount in an accident on Tyrella beach at the age of just 17, fracturing the T7 bone in her spine, leaving her paralysed.
Stafford was 29 when he came off his motorbike and sustained an almost identical injury, fracturing his T6 and T7 bones.
From the very start Stafford has embraced his disability, and if anything, says life in a wheelchair has been more fulfilling. “I knew when I was lying on the side of the road and couldn’t feel my legs that I wasn’t in good shape and they were able to tell me within hours that I wouldn’t walk again,” he recalled.
“The way I looked at it was that I was not killed and it could have been worse. I do always look on the bright side and it was like a wake-up call.
“I honestly think I have had a better quality of life in a wheelchair. I’ve said yes to more things since my spinal injury and my life is full.”
Up until recently Stafford played wheelchair basketball and he also plays wheelchair tennis for the Ireland team, representing them at three world championships.
Within moments of speaking to this remarkable couple, it’s evident that they are kindred spirits. Though Stafford is two decades older than Jean, they never notice the age gap. “It’s not a thing and it never has been,” said Stafford, before joking: “Of course, it helps that I don’t look my age!”
Both are positive about the hand that fate has dealt them and are clearly de- termined not to let it impinge on the quality of their lives.
Stafford added: “Things like this TV series happen to me and my wife all the time. We’ve sat at state dinners with senators, and my wife was asked to do a reading at Nelson Mandela’s memorial service in St Anne’s Cathedral.
“And it is not because the two of us are in wheelchairs that we are picked, it’s because we just embrace life.”
Anxious to dispel some of the perceptions about people living with disabilities, he continued: “We work very hard and we like to let our hair down and party and we love to travel.
“A few years ago we did a tour of Ireland and blogged about it and we made the cover of Ability NI. It was about showing you don’t have to sit at home just because you are in a wheelchair.
“Although we have done bits and pieces for Ability NI over the years, believe it or not we are quite private people, although we did speak about our first failed pregnancy while being filmed for the TV series.
“I got a bit emotional and I teared up, which took me by surprise.
“Wee Harrison is unreal, he is the two of us rolled into one. People say he is the spitting image of me, and he’s mad — he has his mother’s sense of fun.
“Jean is an unreal mum, she’s great and we are just living the dream.” Like her husband, Jean has not allowed her disability to hold her back.
She too embraces every opportunity that comes her way and in 2013 made history when she became the first Rose of Tralee winner in a wheelchair when she won the Rose of Antrim title.
A devoted mum to Harrison, Jean is determined that her son will live a full life and won’t let the fact that she is in a wheelchair impact on his quality of life.
“Motherhood is a challenge no matter who you are and it is just amazing,” she said. “My biggest challenge was that my baby didn’t sleep.”
Practical and determined, Jean explained how she has coped with any potentially tricky moments: “Of course, I did have a few things that were difficult at first but I managed to find a way around them. For example, I took Harrison to baby sensory class and at first it was hard to get him on and off the floor.
“I went home and created a space in the house to practise lifting him on and off the floor, which I did until the next week’s class by which time it was easy to do.
“And I always loved swimming when I was young and I really wanted to take Harrison swimming. My friends and sisters had these lovely photos of their ba-
bies underwater and I wanted to take Harrison.
“I found a class that was happy to let us go and using different floats and ways of doing it, we have both been able to go swimming and we’ve been doing it since he was three months old.”
Such a can-do attitude has helped carry Jean through since the horse riding accident dramatically changed her life when a teenager.
“I left school at 17 and wanted a career as a horse eventing athlete,” she said. “I was trying to get on the Irish team and it was during a qualifying event that I fell and broke my back. It was one of those freak things because I have had worse falls since.
“It was definitely devastating and life-changing and all those things you would imagine. Apparently, the doctor told me I wouldn’t walk again two or three times before I took it in because it was quite traumatic. I must have been shielding myself.
“I am very pragmatic and solution-focused and so I decided to learn how to drive and made decision to go back to school and kept active. Keeping busy also kept me positive and really helped me. I think in that respect Stafford and I are quite alike.
“I think it is amazing the things that have happened in my life since the accident. It’s awesome to think of the people that I have met and the opportunities
I have had because I use a wheelchair. Also, I met Stafford because of it!”
Asked about the secret of their happy relationship, Jean said: “Stafford and I don’t take things too seriously. We like a bit of craic and we have a very strong marriage and are very good friends.”
Jean, too, was surprised by just how much they were prepared to open up as a couple in front of the cameras — all the more remarkable considering their failed IVF attempt was such a trauma they didn’t even tell family and close friends about it. Discussing it on camera was something neither of them had planned.
Jean said: “People don’t know we had IVF and I didn’t expect to talk about it
at all. We didn’t think it would come up as it was such an important, private part of our relationship, but talking about it on the programme did make me realise: ‘My goodness we went through it together and it has made us even stronger’.”
And now thankfully they have their little son — a baby who has brought added happiness to this extraordinary, inspiring couple.
Jean added: “He is everything to us. It was so important for us to have a baby and the fact that he is such a wonderful human being is awesome. He really changed our lives and we know how lucky we are every day that the IVF worked.”