I didn't check this box!

When you adopt a child, there's a form you fill out, placing a check-mark by special needs that you would be willing to accept in a child (and you feel like a real jerk while you're doing it too!) You can say whether you would consider a child with scars, deformities, developmental delay, HIV...the list goes on.

When you give birth to a child, there are no boxes to check. Provided everything goes well, you carry the baby for nine months and become a mother to the child God gives you. And you expect that this beautiful, wrinkly, cuddly baby will thrive and be well.

This past weekend Kaitlyn began showing more signs of infection, and her itchy diaper rash had still not gone away (and had become even more aggravated the minute we put Aquaphor on it), so today I took her in to see our pediatrician. He'd taken a skin culture during the last infection and we discovered that while it was indeed a staph infection, she is NOT colonized or infected with methicillin-resistant staph (or MRSA), which is very good. HOWEVER, she has yet another infection. AND she's lost weight and fallen off her growth curve.

I found out today that he's been doing research and is pretty well convinced that she has a rare syndrome where some part of her immune system is being suppressed. We're going to be visiting two specialists in the upcoming days: a dermatologist and the immunologist (again.) He says he's never seen anything like this and is completely perplexed, and is anxious to get more specialists on board to discover what the problem is. I'm not looking forward to the bloodwork (is there anything worse than holding your baby down during a blood draw?) but I AM looking foward to getting some answers...sort of.

The truth is I'm terrified. My little girl has not been fully well in eight long months. Not only has she not been well, but we don't know what the problem is. Not only THAT, but I'm now afraid to find out. Will it eventually be life-threatening? Is it serious? Am I equipped to deal with this?!

As I was sitting in the cry-room at church on Sunday with two other moms, I reflected on the fact that each of our babies has a health issue to deal with: one baby will need heart surgery, the other has spina bifida, and Kaitlyn most likely has an immune deficiency. It made me think of the Bible verse about Jesus and the man who was blind from birth. "Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?" "Neither this man nor his parents sinned," said Jesus, "but this happened so that the work of God might be displayed in his life." God has beautiful plans for these precious babies and He has made them just the way He wants them. He will give us strength and courage to mother them and love them and to meet whatever need they may have. May I rest in this peace that only comes from above!