A baby born without eyes is set to undergo extensive surgery to stretch his eye sockets so he can have prosthetics fit.
Tate Walker, from North Carolina has anophthalmia, a rare condition that means a child is born without one or both of their eyes.
Shortly after he was born in December 2021, the tot's parents became concerned as he was swollen and struggled to open his eyes.
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After speaking to specialists, Jahavier Walker, 25, and Ryan Walker, 29, were told that the swelling would go down and that he would be fine.
However, it later transpired that he in fact had anophthalmia, which affects just one in every 100,000 children.
"It was such a shock when we found out," said Ryan, from Reidsville.
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"All of his pictures and ultrasounds came back clear. Nothing showed up on any of the scans, nothing on the bloodwork.
"At 9pm the following night, they gave us the news and that he had been born without eyes.
"It was like a punch in the gut. We didn't know anything about this [and] hadn't heard anything ever about anything like this.
"It was a whirlwind of emotions. It was very difficult to hear, especially because it was so unexpected.
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"He's a happy-go-lucky baby. I'd say 95 percent of the time he's laughing, giggling, just wanting to play all the time."
The couple are now trying to raise funds to help pay for Tate's treatment, which will see his eye sockets stretched in preparation for prosthetics.
He is also being seen by a hearing therapist as he learns to deal with his blindness and mild-to-moderate hearing loss.
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Tate's mom and dad hope that he will be fitted with prosthetics in the next year.
"Right now, me and my wife carry him through our jobs," Jahavier said. "We're having to pay extra out of pocket for medical insurance for him, therapies, doctors' visits and other visits.
"The extra money that we're able to save, we have to put towards Tate's treatment - the therapies and the hospital bills when he gets admitted.
"They want his eye sockets to be a certain size for the prosthetics, so that's what we're working on now.
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"We're just trying to learn more about his condition as parents. That way, we can better ourselves and help him in any way that he needs.
"Just because he's blind doesn't mean that he can't live a regular lifestyle.
"It's a little bit stressful, but I wouldn't trade a bit of it because that's my son and I would do anything in the world for him to make him better."
Dominic Smithers