I got the phone call the very next day. I had sent out a call for prayers and good thoughts that we would get an answer for our little girl, and we did. Faster than we thought.

It wasn’t the answer we were hoping for, though.

Celiac Disease.

It could have been a lot worse, yes. And we’re thankful that it wasn’t.

But as Carisa (who got the same diagnosis for herself and her girls) said, there’s going to be a grieving process for gluten. It probably seems dramatic to a lot of people, but how often do you make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich for your kid’s lunch, or order chicken strips at a restaurant? Slice up and devour that loaf of bread that comes before your meal? Or send your child to school when her classmate has brought cupcakes? And those are just the obvious things. We haven’t talked to a nutritionist yet to get the full scope of how our lives are going to change.

We do know that one of us passed the genes on to her, and that, at the very least, Ervin will most likely end up with it, too.

Essie doesn’t know it yet, but things are going to change for her. For everybody…it’ll be a household change.

All I want as a mother is to do what’s best for my children. On a normal day, that’s not easy. But in two weeks, when we take her for an endoscopy and get the final confirmation, things will change drastically and our “normal” won’t be normal anymore. Things won’t feel normal again for a long while, I believe.

For now, I’ll squeeze the girl with the blond curls a little tighter and hold her a little longer.

Because since I picked up the phone, there’s no going back.

(P.S. How about the irony of my blog design? Isn’t THAT a kick in the pants?)

(P.P.S. I wrote a post for MOMables about discovering a food allergy. I would be super happy if I got a little comment love….how about a comment hug?)

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