The pregnancy was completely normal. In the spring of 2003, Danielle Messer was about to bring her second child into the world—a world that seemed more stable, more settled, more planned than when, as a teenager, she had given birth to her son, Taylor. After years as a single mom, Messer, now 25, had a steady partner, a well-paying job as a cosmetologist, and plans to pursue a college degree she had long deferred. Then the baby arrived.
\n\n“It was immediate that something was not right,” Messer said. Ari (short for Aristotle) was “floppy-ish,” in her words. “He wouldn’t eat. He wouldn’t wake up really at all, even after the first few days. He wasn’t alert. His muscle tone was pretty weak.” The doctors in Louisville, Kentucky—where Messer and Ray, now her husband, lived—ran tests but could offer only a diagnosis of “failure to thrive.” Messer understood the catchall phrase to mean “We don’t know.”
\n\nThis article appears in the May 2021 issue. Subscribe to WIRED.
\n\nAri’s parents brought him home, but as the months went by, the baby’s condition worsened. On the rare occasions when Messer could get him to breastfeed, he would vomit soon after. When he was…
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