A place for Camille: Blessings from a special-needs child

In June 2009, after eight months of routine pregnancy, a sonogram revealed that my wife’s amniotic fluid was low, requiring doctors to perform a C-section and bring our daughter Camille into the world. We were assured that the baby was fine, but then, within 24 hours of her birth, we learned that she had breathing difficulties, was smaller than expected (3 lbs., 10 oz.), and needed to be taken to another hospital.

Thus began a four-week nightmare of traveling 45 minutes each way from our home in Waco to the neonatal intensive care unit at Scott and White Hospital in Temple, Texas. We soon discovered the horror of the NICU for parents. Physicians who work in the NICU do not see “normal” children and don’t assume “normalcy.” They assume problems and are on a constant search to discover them. While this pursuit is medically responsible (there is a reason that a child is in the NICU, after all), my wife and I found ourselves inwardly and sometimes outwardly pleading, “Please, can’t she just be who she is? Must we assume the worst?”

Each visit brought a new concern from her doctors. We’d hear: “Her head is too small.” “Her fingers are too long.” “Are her ears rotated just a little too much?” “Is one eye lower than the other?” “We need to do an MRI.” “Her kidneys worry us.” Guessing what they might posit next filled us with dread.