You’re Perfect! - A Mother's Journey

Author: Linde Thomas of Kennnewick, Washington
Published On: 06/11/2019

“How do I fix this?

My life has been quite the fairytale. I married my high school sweetheart, AKA knight and shining armor. He’s the prince charming every girl dreams about. I still wonder how I got so lucky, (why would he chose me). Right after graduating, we had a successful retail business and had our first child that was the light of our lives. Everything was so perfect that we decided to have another baby. It was such an exciting time in our lives and we talked about having children while we were young so we could retire and be done raising children before we turned 40.

We had our second baby girl (my husband always wanted girls) right after our first daughter turned 4. I was so excited about our second baby. I remember doing everything correctly and not even drinking caffeine. I never thought anything could be wrong with my child, because I had never been around anyone that had a special needs child or even had any at my school that I remember. When our second daughter was born, we had a few complications where she had some oxygen problems during birth. However, they did numerous tests and sent her home as a healthy baby.

I was overjoyed with this baby. She was so perfect! She was so easy, happy and I was able to take her to work with me, too. We were in absolute love. She quickly became everyone’s ‘favorite baby.’ People would ask to hold her because she would reach out for them. She was loving and so friendly to everyone. She didn’t walk until around the age of 2, but people told me some kids are ‘late bloomers.’ As her personality developed, she became a shining light to everyone she was around. I remember finding her after church one day at the playground telling a man how handsome he was. She was always complimenting people and hugging them. It brought some people to tears because she would be so encouraging and loving.

I became pregnant again with our third daughter when Sarai was only 10 months old. We were shocked!  ‘I couldn’t be pregnant,’ I thought. ‘I just had a baby and this one wasn’t even walking yet!’

After the shock, we got ready for our third daughter. Sarai was so easy to deal with that I knew I could handle it. Our third daughter was born 18 months after Sarai and we were again feeling so blessed and thankful.

One day my life changed. I took the girls to a checkup at the doctor by myself because my husband had to manage the shop. (Sarai was 3 years old) The doctor was very serious, a very dour-faced man, except when he saw Sarai: he had a love for her. She had charmed him! She would hug him and tell him what a great doctor he was, and his sternness would melt away. As we were there, the doctor left the room for quite some time after seeing Sarai. I was getting irritated because I had two babies and he was having me sit in the room for so long.  He came back in the room and his countenance seemed tragically sad. I thought he must have been helping another child with an emergency. He said he needed to tell me something and it was not good news. I was not used to bad news so I didn’t know to be scared. He looked at Sarai and teared up. (this is not the kind of doctor that would tear up).

‘Sarai has neurofibromatosis and she needs to go to a specialist right away,’ he said.

Read more here.


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