I gave birth to our rainbow baby Spencer on 6/20. We miscarried our 2nd baby last January, and this pregnancy was very difficult. Knowing it would be our last, I tried to enjoy it despite being super sick through most of it. Labor and birth went great & LO came on his due date. Everyone kept telling me how perfect/cute/healthy he was, but we got concerned when he hadn't pooped at 30 hours post delivery. I discovered that he was born without an anus ("imperforate anus") & all the care providers, including the pediatrician, had missed it. We were rushed to Children's Hospital where Spencer had surgery for a colostomy and spent a traumatizing week in the NICU getting a myriad of tests and procedures to check for other deformities. He also has a small hole in his heart and possibly some tethering of his spine.

He has another surgery this month to build out the missing structures and give him an anus, then will have another surgery a few months after to close the colostomy. The doctors gave him a 65% of bowel control, and he will deal with severe constipation his whole life.

I'm heartbroken that he won't be a "normal" boy, that he'll have to live with this issue forever. He doesn't deserve it...what's more I feel I'm grieving our family's loss of normalcy, and like we were cheated out of our joy of a new baby because we now have to deal with colostomy bag changes (which prevent us from doing a lot of our normal things) and health issues. Can anyone else relate? I'm feeling pretty isolated.