Carla Brown, a lawyer turned stayed-at-home mother from Chicago, was the oldest of eight children. Her big family inspired her to one day have one of her own.
Carla and her husband Paul welcomed their two sons, Brent and Luke, by the time they were in their mid-twenties. Then the couple welcomed four more children Sabrina, Ella, Logan, and Tessa.
The former lawyer had the big brood she dreamt of but decided to add more family members. In 2011 she and her husband traveled to Ukraine to adopt Henry. They added three more children, Violet, Leo, and Yana, in 2013.
In June 2020, Carla came across a Facebook post from an adoption agency in Atlanta seeking a home for a one-month-old girl, Hanna, with special needs. The former lawyer ran the idea by her husband, and they went to find their girl.
Hanna’s Rare Skin Condition
The Brown family suffered a painful loss when their son Henry contracted a superbug MRSA and died in 2012 at just two years old. The mother said that after she adopted Henry, she started a blog to connect with other parents who had adopted children with special needs.
Even though posting about her loss was heartbreaking, she had created a community of people that had the same passion for helping children with special needs.
Carla’s daughter Hanna was born with an extremely rare skin condition called Harlequin Ichthyosis, which causes her skin to grow ten times faster than the average person’s.
Before Carla traveled to Atlanta to pick up her daughter, she had never heard of the condition and started rigorously researching it. She found people who had grown up to become game changers and found parents whose children suffered the same condition.Shortly after Carla and Paul brought their daughter home, she was rushed to the ICU due to a bacterial infection. The couple was informed that there was a high chance that Hanna would not make it.
Doctors were convinced that Hanna would not live more than 48 hours because her kidneys had shut down, and her temperature had drastically dropped. But after spending 52 days in the hospital, Hanna returned home with her family.
Although Carla was prepared for a challenge, she admitted that caring for a child with Harlequin Ichthyosis was exhausting. Firstly, she had to bathe for at least two hours a day and apply her prescribed ointment every three hours..https://news.amomama.com/406938-mom-adopts-baby-girl-deemed-scary-and.html