Wednesday, July 9, 2008 --- 8:55 a.m.

Imagine waiting years to adopt a baby - and then waiting months to find out if that baby would survive.

One Stoughton couple finally took home their little bundle of joy, who took them on an unimaginable journey of heartache with a second, even third chance at life.

Like any 14-month-old with a dog, Brayden competes for floor time with his four-legged pal.

Brayden is teething, almost walking, babbling - right on schedule to graduate from baby to toddler.

" I cannot wait until he wakes up in the morning just to get him out of his crib and have him smile it makes your whole day good," said Brenda Welhoefer, Brayden's mother.

But Brenda and her husband Ron - like most parents - didn't know what to do when they took Brayden home. He cried a lot, but doctors chalked it up to plain-old fussiness. They diagnosed him with newborn jaundice, too, which is nothing out of the ordinary.

"At three months he just wasn't losing that color and they decided to run a test to test his billiruben which was sky high," Brenda said.
Brayden was diagnosed with billiary atresia, which means his liver couldn't drain bile. After an unsuccessful surgery to fix it, Brayden needed a transplant.

"None of this has been easy but life's not easy so we take it one day at a time," Brenda said.

Those days turned into months. Brayden suffered from painful skin problems, which is typical with liver disease.

"For the last month before transplant he didn't sleep for more than a half-hour at a time," Brenda said.

"He'd start itching his ears and his toes and sometimes he'd start bleeding," said Ron Welhoefer, Brayden's father. "It seemed like an eternity b/c he just kept getting sicker."

By the eighth month, just after Brayden's first birthday, the Welhoefers wondered how much longer he'd survive. Then one night they saw a story on NBC 15 about a child who had a liver transplant.

Five minutes later, the phone rang - Brayden's liver was ready. He had surgery the next day, but the organ would fail. A few weeks later, he had another liver transplant, and this time, it would work.

Doctor Tony D'Alessandro from UW Hospital's Transplant team hopes Brayden's story will encourage families everywhere to talk.

"I think the biggest thing that people can do is really understand that their friends, their neighbors are in need and that some of them won't survive unless they receive a transplant," D'Alessandro said.

He says too often people don't think about organ donation until they're dealing with an emotional and tragic time. But he has seen first-hand the power of the gift of life.

"To watch the donor family but their ear to the chest of a person who received the heart of their loved one is just something that's hard to describe," said D'Alessandro.

The Welhoefer's also hope Brayden's story will shorten that waiting list. After two transplant surgeries and two months, their son has a chance.

" Not only did he get a liver transplant but he got a personality transplant. He's just so much happier and has so much more energy and it's like I tell people I think we brought a different baby home," Brenda said.

Brayden's prognosis is good - after one year doctors say he will have a relatively normal life expectancy.

State lawmakers are working on legislation that would create an organ donor registry, since right now most people only consider organ donation when they renew their driver's license every eight years.