My son, Cabell, started getting sick at around 3 months of age. He wouldn't nurse or take a bottle, was breathing funny, would scream any time we put him on his tummy, etc. We took him to doctor after doctor and had him tested for everything under the sun (or so we thought!), from Cystic Fibrosis to reflux.

Finally, at almost six months of age, Cabell's pediatrician ordered an x-ray because he heard fluid in his lungs. The x-ray proved to be devastatic: Cabell's heart was grossly enlarged. He was rushed to a children's hospital four hours away from home where he was diagnosed with dilated cardiomyopathy, a disease which is rare in children, affecting only 30,000 in the United States. Cabell's heart could not pump effectively and this heart failure was beginning to affect his other organs as well.

Cabell's team of cardiologists quickly realized that he was not responding to medication and that his only hope for survival would be a heart transplant. He received his gift on August 26, 2009 at the age of eight months old.

This Christmas, Cabell will celebrate his first birthday. If it weren't for an amazing, heroic donor family, a team of incredible doctors, and our insistence, as parents, that something was wrong with our child, our son would probably not be alive today. As parents, we need to realize that doctors do not always have all of the answers and WE know our children best. If you go to your child's pediatrician 20 times without getting the answers you seek, go 21 times! Never take "I don't know" for an answer. Trust your instincts and be an advocate for your child. You could quite possibly save their life.