Laying on the operating table after my C-section, I heard someone whisper, “Wow! He’s got a big birthmark on his face.” At first, I didn’t think much of it—but the moment I saw it, I, too, was a little shocked. A vivid reddish-purple color covered more than half of my newborn son’s face. My second son, Leonardo Joshua Poidmore, was born on October 18th, 2018, weighing a healthy 8 pounds 2 ounces. As doctors and nurses came in and out of the room, I fed my sweet boy for the first time. To me, he was perfect. But soon, questions began racing through my mind: Will this birthmark fade? Will it get worse? What will other people think? Could this lead to other health problems?
When we were finally able to see the pediatrician, we heard the acronym “PWS,” which stands for port-wine stain. PWS is a vascular birthmark that can sometimes signal greater health issues if left untreated. It affects roughly one in every thousand children, and about 5 percent of those children develop additional complications as part of a syndrome associated with PWS. For Leo, the location of his birthmark meant his risk was higher, specifically for eye and neurological issues. It wasn’t long before we learned that our sweet son had a rare disease called Sturge-Weber Syndrome (SWS).
My husband comforted me with these words from Scripture: *“As he went along, he saw a man blind from birth. His disciples asked him, ‘Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?’ ‘Neither this man nor his parents
