Weston Reed Walker

On December 19, 2006 at 7:16pm, Marshall and I were blessed by God with the most amazing little miracle!  Our lives were forever changed for the better and at that point we had no idea how wonderful it all would be!  Weston Reed Walker made us so proud that day and has continued to make us proud each and every day since! 

He was born via c-section after nearly 30 long hours of labor! He was having some trouble breathing, so I only got a short peak at him before he was taken for observation and tests.  I got to see him the next day and my heart melted!  We were released a few days later and started our life at home as a family of three!!

Our first year was filled with many doctors appointments, appointments with specialists, weird concerns and a LOT of crying!!  Weston had trouble breathing because he has tiny nasal passages and his nose was constantly blocked by thick mucus.  This made eating a challenge and a huge frustration for him!  We spent many, many nights in the bathroom with the hot shower on to feed him bottles.  We had several concerns about Weston.  The breathing and feeding problems were two of them, but they went on to unexplained fevers, no eyelashes or eyebrows, and no teeth!  Pediatricians always told me that was “just Weston” and I was maybe a little over-concerned because I was a first time mom!! I didn’t like to hear that, but it was like they almost convinced me that they were right!! Almost!!

When Weston was 18 months old, we were visiting Uncle Rick at Canyon Lake.  I took Weston from the truck to the boat and we parked the truck and were ready to head out on the water for a day of fun!  In those five minutes, Weston became very lethargic and he was smoking hot.  His eyes started to roll back in his head so I dipped him in the water to try to cool him off.  This happened a lot, but this was the first time he was so close to passing out.  A few minutes later, he came back to life and was fine!  Fifteen minutes later, his suit was dry and he was really hot again.  We dipped him again and, again, we were fine.  I had expressed to my pediatrician that I did not think that Weston sweat.  He assured me that everyone sweats!!  After this day out on the boat, I talked with my brother some more about it and told him all of my concerns and how the doctors

made me feel like I was crazy!  We went home a couple of days later and I got an email and a phone call from my brother.  He tells me he found some literature on these concerns that I had about Weston.  I read his email and it had a link to the National Foundation for Ectodermal Dysplasias! 

I remember reading over the syptoms for Hypohidrotic Ectodermal Dysplasia and I screamed and I cried and I laughed!! I never wanted to hear that anything was wrong with my baby, but it was amazing to have answers and to realize that I was not crazy!! The next few months we went through every emotion.. we were happy, sad and defeated, mad, devastated… and then we got over it and we decided we would dedicate our lives to making the best life for Weston and any future kiddos!! 

Since then, we have learned everything we can about this disorder and we have learned that we have a strong, kind, fun, smart, funny, amazing little boy to call our own!!  Weston has played soccer and t-ball and is now interested in learning karate and how to play the violin!!  So, those are our next adventures!  Weston has most recently made us proud again by being such a sweet big brother to his new brother, Finley Gray Walker.