Ryan's hope

National | He was the size of a human hand when his parents adopted him, but now Ryan McMullen is a 3 1/2-year-old ball of energy | Susan Olasky

When Kevin and Amy McMullen adopted Ryan 3 H years ago (WORLD cover story, June 6, 1998), they knew something about adoption because they had already adopted Dalton (now 8) and Seamus (now 6). But Ryan's birth was something different. He was born at 26 weeks, weighing 1 lb. 12 oz. He was so tiny that he fit easily into the palm of Kevin's hand, with his miniature feet barely reaching his father's wrist. His skin, his lungs, his eyes were all underdeveloped, leading the doctors to think he would either die or have a medically troubled life.

That their new baby had problems did not deter the McMullens from adoption. They wanted to serve. It helped that Kevin is a doctor-at that time stationed at Fort Hood in Texas-and that the McMullens did not panic when Ryan's monitor went off in the middle of the night, signaling that he had stopped breathing. For months after leaving the hospital, that monitor, and a canister of oxygen, accompanied him everywhere.