Whole

Are you having a girl or a boy? That seems to be the most often asked question when you're expecting a new little one. Those who don't have a preference might respond with something like: "We just want a healthy baby" or "we don't care as long as it has 10 fingers and ten toes..."
I probably would have agreed- before I had Caleb. When we were expecting Caleb, we knew his brain was missing the corpus collosum, but other than that, we had a limited amount of information. I remember the day that a doctor called me after viewing the results of an in-utero MRI. He casually told me that Caleb was missing one of his eyes.

One eye. Caleb only had one eye. Over the next few months, it seemed that every time we learned something new, something else was missing. When Caleb was born, we soon found out that he was missing his brain. That information wasn't the most devastating.
"You'll likely have weeks before his death...take him home, there is nothing more we can do" was the most devastating.

It didn't matter what was missing. It didn't matter that he wasn't a healthy baby.
I couldn't bear the thought of missing him....
Caleb isn't incomplete. In fact, he is more whole than I am.
I love every little part of him.
I wonder what I'll say the next time I'm expecting and I'm asked my preferences.
Perhaps I'll just answer that I'm profoundly thankful for the privilege.

This past week I took my 4 year old Caleb on a walk.
I took a picture of him over the top of his stroller.

10 little toes...

Perfect.

Just like he is.