No one tells you what to do when your baby isn’t healthy. 

“Do you want a girl or a boy?”

“It doesn’t matter, as long as it is healthy”
This is a coverasation every expectant parent has with almost every person they come into contact with. Every. Time. 

I’m pregnant with my third baby. We have already been blessed with two beautiful girls ages 5 and 1.  We have had the above conversation countless times. Even more with this pregnancy:

“Ya’ll need a boy”

“We would love a boy, but healthy will do just fine.” 

Everyone assumes their baby will be healthy, but no one is ever prepared for the exact the opposite. 

Our second was born with a very mild airway defect. I swear I’ll never know what a normal baby breathes like. Luckily, she is perfectly healthy now. Something, I don’t take for granted, and realize it could be fleeting. 

You see our first was born with a much more difficult form of the same airway defect and we watched her struggle with it and it’s side effects for three years. She was also born with a mild heart defect. Along with those she struggles daily with OCD, and sensory processing disorder. However at age four,4, just when we thought we had finished our struggles. EPILEPSY. 

Now at the tender of age five. She faces a lifelong battle of medication side effects, and side effects of multiple seizures almost daily. 

No one and nothing can prepare you for an unhealthy child. No one tells you that you will spend hours asking God why. That you will cry more tears than you ever thought possible. That you can love and hurt so deeply. No one tells you that you will go to bed praying your child is alive in the morning. No one tells you the fear you have when they don’t wake up before you which is rare and you have to go check on them; praying they were just super tired. 

No one tells you, your eyes will be opened to a whole new world you didn’t know existed. 

No one will tell you that having a “unhealthy” child may be the hardest thing you have to do. 

Everyone will tell you it will be the biggest blessing you will ever experience.

It will change your life. The small moments truly become the big moments. Life lessons are learned. More love than imaginable is given and received. 

While everyone prays for a healthy child. I am thankful for the “unhealthy” child that has taught me so much about life. 

I pray for a child that will bring their own personality, talents, perspective, and love into our family in whatever way God chooses to bless them and us.