The 3-year-old was diagnosed with a severe global developmental delay, which affected his ability to eat, walk and reach developmental milestones
Credit: Getty
NEED TO KNOW
- Kimberly Waterworth’s son, Chester, walked her down the aisle at her wedding, despite being told he may never gain the ability to walk
- “I was very overwhelmed because it’s just something I never thought would happen,” Kimberly said
- The 3-year-old was diagnosed with a severe global developmental delay one year prior, affecting his ability to reach the expected developmental milestones for his age
A Manchester, England, mom watched her son achieve the impossible on her wedding day.
In the weeks after her son's birth on June 28, 2022, Kimberly Waterworth immediately noticed that her newborn struggled to keep milk down. Although the doctors later determined that Chester had a floppy larynx and recommended surgery, the operation did not improve his eating habits.
Soon after, Chester was diagnosed with a severe global developmental delay (GDD) that affected his ability to eat, walk and reach the expected developmental milestones for a 2-year-old. At one point, Kimberly, 28, was told that he may never gain the ability to walk in his lifetime.
"He was very small, frail, and fatigued,” she recalled to the Manchester Evening News. “He was starving himself by refusing to eat often enough, he just wouldn't put on any weight.”
"I have two other boys and knew roughly how much he should be weighing and how he should be sitting and standing at this point, but Chester wasn't,” she added, noting that her son had also developed tonsillitis and a suspected eating disorder the following year.
After doctors fitted him with a nasogastric (NG) tube however, Kimberly told the outlet that “the color came back to his skin and he looked so much better.”
Even so, Kimberly still didn’t have much hope that her son, now 3, would have the ability to walk her down the aisle for her November wedding to husband Matthew — until the toddler proved everyone wrong.
Credit: Getty
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"I was very overwhelmed because it's just something I never thought would happen," she told the BBC of the emotional moment. “I do genuinely believe if it weren't for that nursery who would still be in that rut we were in.”
Indeed, Kimberly credits nursery manager Katie Unsworth and teaching assistant Shelley Marston at Hope School Nursery in Wigan for encouraging Chester, who has also been diagnosed with autism and ADHD, to persevere in his journey to taking his first steps.
"It's not just a job to them,” she continued. "They're outstanding. They've obviously helped our little boy and we'll be forever grateful. I'll never be able to put it into words what they've done for us as a family, for our little boy. Honestly, it's just amazing how brilliant they are."
Unsworth and Marston even went as far as offering to attend the wedding to help look after Chester and support him as he stole the hearts of the wedding guests.
"It was amazing, we were absolutely elated, we couldn't believe it, and [it was] very much out of the blue," Unsworth told the BBC of witnessing the toddler’s milestone. "You can't kind of see those first initial steps, but with Chester we were doing pull-to-stand and he was getting sturdier and then he just went.”
"It was fantastic and it was about perseverance, really,” she added. “It's that want and that need, and Chester had that want to do that, and we just facilitated that, really.”
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