by Rae Anna Blake

Created on: November 13, 2008

She was exhausted. Her face was flushed, her eyes were tired, her hair was wet and matted, and her lips were dry and chapped. Yet, Josh could not help but think that she looked more beautiful at that very moment than ever before as she gazed down lovingly at the tiny person she held in her arms all swaddled in pink. She was here, she was finally here, their daughter, after a road of sadness and heartache they finally had their baby girl.

Josh and Olivia were thrilled to have this bundle of joy in their life. It had been a long hard road to get here. Josh and Olivia had married young and they immediately became pregnant with their first child, Mason. For all practical purposes Olivia's pregnancy was relatively uneventful and Mason seemed to be a healthy child, but that would all change.

Olivia and Josh began to notice that Mason was not developing as they felt he should develop. They took him to numerous doctors and specialist and initially no one could seem to pinpoint what was wrong with Mason. Numerous test were performed, several diagnosises were tossed about as what could possibly be wrong with Mason. After almost a year of multiple trips to various specialists and children's hospitals with intermittent ER visits, Olivia and Josh were finally getting some answers.

Sadly because of the nature of the disease there was not much hope that Mason would recover, in fact Josh and Olivia were told that Mason would be lucky to see 3 years old. They were devastated. Mason was diagnosed with Alpers Syndrome, a mitochondrial disease for which their was no cure. Doctors told Josh and Olivia that Mason inherited the gene that caused his disease and that if they were to have other children, based on the type of disease that Mason exhibited, that there would be a 25% to 50% chance that that child could be affected by the disease.

Over the next 2 months Josh and Olivia spent as much time with Mason as they could and they shared as much of their life with them as they could possibly squeeze into his abbreviated life. At 22 months old, Mason lost his battle with Alpers and left a huge void in the lives of Josh and Olivia. It took a lot of time, a lot of love, and a lot of energy to get past losing Mason. Not that they would ever truly get past losing a child to such a cruel disease at such a young age, but they finally found a place that at least allowed them to accept it and try to move on in a positive way.

So today, 4 years after Mason's passing, a new life emerged and Josh

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