When we arrived at the hospital, Emma had been taken to the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit to be evaluated by the doctors there. I was in a wheel chair which I hated! Some friends and family had met us there and we waited until we could go in to see Emma. It was all very overwhelming when we did see her. She had moniters hooked up to her and the NICU was a quiet, surreal place. We spent six weeks there. It was a new world for us but one which we grew accustomed to. We stayed at a nearby Ronald McDonald house and drove to the hospital every day to spend the day sitting by Emma's bed and in waiting rooms. We got to know several families and developed a routine. On our fourth day there we finally received some answers to our questions. Emma was diagnosed with Smith-Lemli-Opitz syndrome. Basically, her body did not produce the cholesterol it needed to function at a normal level. She also could not absorb cholesterol. It was a bleak diagnosis. She was considered to be a severe case with not much hope. We were told she would be a "vegetable". The doctor told us she would not live long and all we could do was to try and make her comfortable. The list of problems she would face was too much for us to absorb at the time. We were in shock. It was a time of mourning the child we thought we were having and coming to terms with a new reality. We came to refer to that day as "black Thursday". We sadly called our families to tell them the news. Our days in the NICU were long and filled with so many ups and downs. Besides "black Thursday", our lowest point came when Emma's blood pressure shot up to the point where we could not touch her or talk to her. She had to be sedated to keep her calm. I hated those days. We had to make the decision to have an angiogram done to find out if her kidneys were functioning. It was clear that the doctors and some nurses believed we were going too far to save her. It was a decision we felt we had to make. We believed Emma was a gift from God just like any child and she deserved every effort to be made on her behalf. We never did find out why her blood pressure shot up like that but we were able to get it stabilized with medication. So many people supported us during that time. My parents kept Allie for us and brought her to visit us very often. Our church gave Dean the freedom to be with me and Emma and made him come back up even when he tried to return to work. Friends came and brought hot meals. We received so many gifts and cards. We had 16 pastors come to visit! It was the hardest time, yet the most blessed time. We felt God's presence with us every step of the way. I wouldn't trade a moment of it. Finally, after a heart surgery and many other medical procedures, we were told we could take Emma home. Even then, the doctors felt the need to make sure we understood that there was no hope for normalcy and our job was to make Emma comfortable and wait for the inevitable. What they didn't know was that we had already fallen in love with our baby girl and there was no one who could take away the joy we felt to be taking her home with us. We were thrilled to have her in our family for whatever time God chose to keep her there. It was a very happy day!