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She finished classes that spring. By year's end, she had shelved her education and welcomed the still and silent baby into her home.

A new mission

The Cogdills had prayed for a big family but have only one child, Travis, now 16. They doted on him, taking him on camping trips and to church revivals.

"All that came to a halt one day, and it's never been the same," Cogdill said, recalling the day Hailey came to live with them.

Social workers took Hailey from Seals in November 1997, Cogdill said. Seals asked Cogdill to keep Hailey for a few months until she could win her child back.

But Seals, now 34, said she faced a losing battle to satisfy the demands of social services.

"I eventually backed off because I didn't want my children to worry about where they would be the next day," said Seals, who also lost custody of two other children.

She said she is grateful that Hailey ended up with the Cogdills, who eventually assumed legal custody.

Cogdill's family warned her against taking Hailey. They reminded her about her dream of going to beauty school, about buying an RV and traveling the country after retirement.

"We fell in love with her," Cogdill said. "There's no going back from that."

The Cogdills' days filled with changing diapers, stretching Hailey's stiff muscles and grinding turkey and dressing to mush so she could swallow it. They stopped going anywhere but church and their jobs -- Cogdill as a secretary at Mars Hill, her husband as a welder. They made sure to be home by 7 p.m. for Robert Cogdill to crush Hailey's seizure medicine into a bowl of pudding. Their one treat: dinner at Ryan's, the only restaurant serving mashed potatoes mushy enough for Hailey to eat.

In the early years, Darlene Cogdill would watch over Hailey through the night from a rocking chair by her crib. When the sleepless nights left Cogdill unable to focus, she quit her job at the college. Bills piled up. Cogdill sank into depression; she called it a nervous breakdown.

"How do you come to terms with walking into your child's room one day and find her dead?" Cogdill said, shaking her head as if to clear the ever-present thought.

Hailey now sleeps with the Cogdills most nights, just in case.

The costs of caring

These days, Cogdill keeps phone numbers for five doctors -- including a neurologist, an orthopedic surgeon and an eye doctor -- on her speed dial. Each morning over the summer, Cogdill would strap on Hailey's $700 leg braces, grab her hands and coax her to take a wobbly step. Now that fall is here, Hailey takes a bus each morning to a special school 45 minutes away.

Because she can't walk on her own, her muscles stay tight, pointing her feet and curling her toes. To keep her flexible, doctors clipped her leg muscles four years ago. Every six to eight months, Hailey gets 18 shots of Botox to relax her muscles so the Cogdills can stretch them.

Hailey's schedule is rigid. It has to be. One hiccup, and she could have a seizure.

Robert Cogdill thinks Hailey finally hit the "terrible twos" this year. She has as many as five head-banging tantrums a day.

One sneaked up on Darlene Cogdill on a rainy July morning. Hailey's eyes squinted, and her lips pursed in a scowl. Cogdill scooped her up, wrapped her tight in a beach towel and sat in a recliner. Hailey threw her head against the back of the chair and cried a shrill, heartbreaking kind of cry.

For 15 minutes, Cogdill held tight and rocked. Hailey stuck her arm out of the beach-towel cocoon and pinched Cogdill hard enough to draw blood.

Finally, it passed. Hailey rubbed her eyes, pulled Cogdill's hand on top of her head and sighed.

Cogdill swears that Hailey is not being hateful. She doesn't have any other way to show she's mad.

Sometimes Cogdill thinks it would have been better for Hailey if she had died that night at the hospital. "But we're thankful she's here," she said. "We feel like we're caring for an angel. Sure, she's an angel that bites and pinches, slaps and pulls your hair, but she's an angel sure enough."

When Hailey turned 9 last month -- a birthday that once seemed impossible -- Cogdill gave her a piece of cake to mash and smear. She bragged about Hailey's progress: This year, she learned to roll toward Cogdill and reach out her hand when she calls. She didn't mention that Hailey stopped saying "Mom" and "Dad" six months ago; she doesn't dwell on setbacks.

Over the summer, Hailey began having what the Cogdills suspect are seizures. Her eyes roll back in her head, and her stiff arms tremble. Doctors will test Hailey this month to find out what's troubling her.

The Cogdills keep a vial of Diastat, a potent muscle relaxer used to calm seizures, handy in a kitchen cupboard.

They fear this is the beginning of the end.

"I wonder every time I walk through that door if it will be the last time I get to kiss her," Cogdill said. "But what do you do? Stop caring? No, you just scoop her up and love her more."

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