Any dreams we had had for our newborn baby boy vanished immediately at the doctor's cold, harsh words.

"Your child was born with severe brain damage.  He will probably never walk or talk or do anything for himself.  He will probably require 24-hour care."

Carolyn and I stared at each other in disbelief.  The baby boy we had planned for and wanted for 9 months was born in not the way we quite expected.  Basically, Dr. Chin was telling us that our son was seriously disabled; there were no guarantees as to what kind of life he would lead.

It was the worst thing that could have ever happened to us.

We looked at our baby boy, who lay in an Isolette in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU); he lay sleeping, oblivious to the news bombsell the doctor had just dropped on us.  He looked fairly comfortable, even with all the wires and lines connected to him.  His color was fairly good (rather red in appearance, but that was common with very premature infants such as our son), and his vital signs were okay; he wasn't in any danger of dying.

Life for him was peaceful, even amid all the beeps and hums of the machines, but our world as we knew it had suddenly been rocked right off of its foundation.  Life would never be the same for little Creighton Patrick ... or for us, his mommy and daddy.

(To be continued!)