A mother of two who was born with a rare disorder which causes abnormalities in the spine, has found an unconventional way of getting around, she travels by skateboard.
Rosemary Siggins, who is just 2ft 6in, suffers from sacral agenesis, and had the lower half of her body removed when she was aged two.
She learned to walk on her hands at first, but eventually began using a skateboard to help her get around.
‘My skateboard’s so important to me – it is the difference between feeling trapped and feeling free,’ she said during an interview with Closer magazine. ‘I couldn’t get by without it. And the kids think it’s cool!
Rosemary (known as Rose) is mother to Luke, 13, and Shelby, six, and drives them to school every day in her specially adapted car.
‘When Luke was young, we’d skateboard together,’ she said. ‘At first, he wasn’t able to stand on the board, so he’d sit and push with his hands like me.’
The 39-year-old from Pueblo, Colorado, was fitted with prosthetic legs at the age of six, but found them too painful, preferring to use her skateboard.
‘I annoyed the hell out of my teachers, as they’d find my legs left around the school where I’d slipped out of them and got on my skateboard,’ she added.
While she was confident in her younger years, Rose became incredibly insecure about her condition when she was a teenager, and worried that she’s never have a boyfriend or a family of her own.
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She trained as a mechanic and qualified when she was 22, but was resigned to the fact that she’d be alone for the rest of her life.
But Rose’s life changed in 1997 when she met Dave Siggins, who worked at the car parts shop she regularly used.
‘There was an immediate attraction for both of us,’ said Rose. ‘He treated me just like any other woman and told me I was beautiful. Eight months later, we began dating.’
Rose fell pregnant a year after she began dating Dave (who is 5ft 11in).
The couple (who say they have a normal sex life) had assumed they would not be able to have children as sacral agenesis often causes damage to the reproductive systems.
‘When I went to see my specialist, they told me no one with sacral agenesis had ever gone full term and said a baby could crush my internal organs,' she explains.
‘One doctor even advised an abortion, but I refused. I knew the chances of passing on my condition were almost nil.
‘Luckily, it was an easy pregnancy and Luke was born healthy by C-section in January 1999.’
She went on to have daughter Shelby when Luke was six, but her second pregnancy was more difficult.
