Our Family grows!

It was 1990 and we were enjoying our new family life! We had moved into a new home in the far northeast. We were living closer to the family and to our church. We were very happy! Well you know what they say about a new house...."New house...new baby!" Yes, we found out that we were expecting our next child. We had undergone genetic testing....we knew that I was the carrier of the SCID gene...and that it was carried on the X gene...so this means that each one of our sons would have a 50/50 chance of having SCIDS. However, if we had a daughter she would have a 50% chance of being a carrier...but she would not be sick. We wanted more children because we knew that they were a great blessing from the LORD.....Well needless to say....we were excited about being pregnant....but part of us were scared. But we knew that GOD was in control and He would "work all things together for our good". We decided that we would have an amniocentesis to determine the sex of our child and at the time they didn't have a test that could test for SCIDS....they were close...but not quite.
While we were waiting we found out that I was exposed to CMV....the person I was exposed to had given it to me and she was pregnant. Her child had developed complications from what was perceived to be CMV and now I was exposed. The problem was that there was no telling what would happen to a boy with SCIDS that contracted this disease. This was a very stressful time in our lives!
Just before Thanksgiving we had the amniocentesis and in December we found out that we were having a boy...and that he had SCIDS. We were happy to be having another son...but at this point we knew that the Lord's hand was on his life and that in the end everything will be OK.
But here is the thing....we had A LOT of people upset with us! Even though we had peace they couldn't understand.....we had people pressuring us to abort our child. There was absolutely NO WAY this was going to happen! But I felt like I had to fight tooth and nail for my son and he wasn't even born yet!
Fast Forward to April 1991....we had everything planned.....our son would be born in University of Pennsylvania....which is connected to Children's hospital of Philadelphia......he would be kept in isolation...until we could officially get him diagnosed and then he would have his transplant.

I went into labor at 3 weeks.....and the doctors stopped the labor....they weren't ready yet! Well one week later they decided to induce labor....so my stubborn lazy son decided that he was going to take 27 hours to make his appearance! Yes.....27 hours! But on April 23, 1991 we were proud parents to Mark Danial....and we couldn't have been happier.

We did do the test and yes he did have SCIDS....so he was whisked away to CHOP and he was the youngest Bone marrow Transplant recipient....he was 70 hours old! Since they knew that he was going to need a transplant they used the leftovers from the transplant from David....They also left in the artery from the umbilical cord and so he didn't need a port....after a week...they sent him home.....we were so excited! This was all new and very unusual but because we knew ahead of time and were prepared it was OK!