From the moment she first saw him, she knew he was different. When her son we called Cosmo, was born, his shock of white hair and the deep red tint in his newborn eyes felt magical. She remembers thinking: He looks other-worldly, like a magical being. Wow, is she the chosen one? Cosmo wasn’t her first pregnancy, but it was the first time she truly felt hopeful. She had lost three babies before her miscarriages that shattered her dreams. So when she finally saw those two lines on the pregnancy test, she prayed he would come to them.
She told herself again and again: “This one is the one.” That’s why, even before we knew his story, we nicknamed him “John Connor”, a playful nod to strength and hope, a reminder that he had beaten the odds when many around us said it was time to give up. Doctors were worried. They told her Cosmo might be too fragile. They said his head looked big, that my placenta had complications, and everything pointed to pregnancy risk. They wanted her to plan a C-section from early on. But deep down, she held on to a different voice, her own sense that Cosmo and she would be fine, that we had a chance at a “normal birth.”
Finally, the day came. It was a long labor of fourteen hours. Her husband didn’t leave her side. He coached her, breathed with her, held her hand, kissed her. At one point, they offered her pain relief. She asked for it. Then the nurses and even the doctor refused. They said, “You’ve come this far. You can do it.” A little terrified, but stubbornly determined, she refused any interventions. She didn’t know then how strong she was. When she started pushing, she barely noticed when the doctor turned to her husband mid-delivery and asked, “Is there blond hair in his family?” She is pretty sure she yelled something like, “Maybe later!” She was too overwhelmed to care about the doctors’ observations.
But inside, she burst with excitement because finally, after so much hardship, the moment was here, and then she held him. Tiny, fragile, perfect. He cried loud and strong and filled that delivery room with life. She cried too. Her husband cried. They held their baby. They named him Cosmo. She whispered to him in her head: “You made it. You really made it.” She looked at his hair, so white, so strange, and his eyes that deep red reflecting tiny lights, and she felt awe. She felt love. And she felt blessed.
At first, no one around them knew what exactly was different about him. I asked, “Could he be albino?” The nurses and doctors exchanged glances. Some weren’t sure. None had seen a baby like him. Then a sweet African-American nurse gently nodded and said, “Yes. I think he is.” It was rare. Maybe 1 in 17,000 births. It explained the hair, the eyes, everything. From that moment, Cosmo became special not just to us, but to the whole ward. Nurses, staff, they all came in just to see him. He was the star of the ward. As time passed, we settled into a new normal. We learned about his albinism: how it might affect his eyesight, how his skin would be more sensitive to sunlight, and how some people might stare.
At first, I worried he would be treated differently. Would he struggle with being “other”? But then I decided: in our small family, Cosmo is completely normal. He is just our child. Not less, not more, just uniquely beautiful. People sometimes ask, “Why does he look so different from you?” or “Did you do something during pregnancy?” It hurts a little, but I try to answer with kindness: albinism isn’t caused by anything you did. It’s just the way genes sometimes work.
She told them, “No, they couldn’t have prevented this, nor should we be sad about it.” Cosmo’s whiteness doesn’t define him; his spirit does. Every time she looks at him, she feels the same wonder. That magical sense she had when she first held him, like she had been chosen for something special. And maybe she was. Not because he’s different, but because through Cosmo, she learned that love doesn’t care about what the world thinks about “normal.” Love sees souls. It sees hearts. It chooses beauty even when it looks different. We are proud. We are blessed. And above all, we are family.
