Not too long ago, Scott Baio was looking for love. The Happy Days star eventually found it, with Renee Sloan, and soon after was set to become a father. In November 2007, Scott did become a father, to baby girl Bailey Deluca. Then, disaster struck. His newborn daughter was diagnosed with a potentially life-threatening metabolic disorder. The star kept the entire thing under tight wraps, even as he and Renee tied the knot.
Says Scott: "It was the worst time in my life.... The disease is a constant in your brain. It never leaves you." After over two months of testing, it was revealed little Bailey had tested a false positive. While Scott and his wife felt relieved, he noted that the scare put everything in perspective.
I can't imagine what it must have been like for them to go through such a thing. I feel for any parent who has medical concerns about a child. I used to spend all my time worrying about my son; now I split that time between worrying about him and my unborn daughter. Baio was incredibly lucky that his baby's illness turned out to be only a scare--many parents are not so lucky. Still, scare or no, it's all a part of being a parent--welcome to parenthood, Scott.
1. I can completely understand what Scott and his family are going through. We have been living this nightmare for 11 months now. My daughter's infant screen came back showing a devastating metabolic disorder too. It took three months to get the results back to show she did not have this disorder. While doing the testing a different metabolic disorder popped up. We have been waiting 8 months to receive those final results. While the infant screening tests are great and can save many, many lives, the follow up testing is horrible! It is very time consuming and stressful. Only one lab in the entire world can perform the test my daughter needs and they are notoriously slow. My daughter has fortunately remained symptom free through this entire process, so we are hopeful that she is ok. We are just waiting for some closure.
Posted at 9:50AM on Jun 25th 2008 by Mama2Kids