The couple met in the church choir, married in 1988 and decided to start their family a year later. It was late February 1990, days before Matthew's birth, when doctors noticed an irregularity in Donna's ultrasound test. Before then, there had been no complications in the pregnancy. Doctors found that her unborn baby had hydrocephalus, a condition in which fluid does not drain properly from the brain. It started in the womb for the Douglas boys.
Shunts drain spinal fluid from their brains to their abdomens.
In each of the three boys, some degree of brain damage already had taken place inside the womb. Shunts allow most hydrocephalus patients to walk and talk normally, said Dr. Louis W. Solomon, a pediatric neurosurgeon who has treated the Douglas children. Experts say that between 2 percent and 7 percent of all hydrocephalus cases are caused by an irregular gene in the mother, and brain damage that begins in the womb among those who have X-linked hydrocephalus may be more severe. At birth, Matthew weighed 9 pounds 5 ounces. Matthew stayed at All Children's Hospital in St. Petersburg for six weeks.