This is just a little story giving you a glimpse of our family over the last year. I wrote it for the sMiles4Sammy annual fundraiser weekend. Having a medically fragile child affects not just that child, but the entire family. Everything is brought into question. Why him? Why us? Why suffering? How will we ever manage? Is God still good? When Nathan came barreling into our lives we immediately knew something was wrong. Within two weeks it was confirmed. He was diagnosed with

Some of you have told me that I am handling this remarkably well. Let me assure you that I am not. Any evidence of faith on my part is because of God’s Spirit working in me. This experience is THE single most painful thing I’ve ever experienced. Bad break-ups, moving cross country, losing a friend on 9/11, miscarriage, a premature baby, even becoming deathly ill myself–none of it comes close to how heavy this burden feels right now. It’s the ultimate punch to the stomach and

We did receive a final diagnosis. Nathan is a confirmed case of 5p-, or Cri du Chat syndrome. About 40 or 50 babies are born with this in the US in a year. From everything the geneticist told us about where the break in the chromosome occurred, he has a pretty severe case. The big challenges for him will be feeding, walking, speech. He will have cognitive impairments. The most development kids with this can attain to is about the age of about a five or six year old child. I w

After our first son was born we lived in the question of “Should we have another baby?” for a very long time. One near death experience (my husband would argue two) during that pregnancy was very sobering. It made us think long and hard about our options. When our oldest was two and a half we finally decided to start pursuing a domestic infant adoption. I struggled with the decision a lot because quite frankly I felt insecure about my ability to parent a child with unique nee