A mother of four has given one of her children a new lease on life by giving him one of her kidneys.
With just days before Mother's Day, the Kudowitz family has so much more to celebrate, especially after mom Laura's selfless act of love.
“I think the nice thing about donating to your own child is that you get to see what donating can do. You get to see the results. You get to see the person being healthy,” Laura Kudowitz says.
Laura and her husband, Brian, say that they ever second-guessed the decision to donate a kidney to their 7-year-old son Paul. Paul was born with chronic kidney disease.
“He’s our son and we would do anything for him. There was no thought. All we did was pray that one of us was a match,” Laura says.
Paul has had at least seven surgeries in his short lifetime.
“We found out about Paul’s condition in utero and it was something we had to prepare for,” says Brian. “And we knew that there was going to be a chance that one day he would need a kidney transplant.”
Laura and Paul went into surgery on Oct. 26, 2020. Brian says that the surgery was different than Paul’s previous ones because he was seeing off both his wife and son. He says that he still remembers Paul’s first words when he woke up after the surgery.
“He had just come out of anesthesia. The first thing he said to me was, ‘How’s mommy?’ That was the first conscious thing he said to me,” says Brian.
It has been seven months since Laura donated her kidney, and though the two had a close bond before the surgery, they are even closer now.
Paul will most likely need another transplant down the line but for now, his parents say that they are enjoying watching him progress normally.