Their first child, Brandon Tyler, was born prematurely at 24½ weeks on Sept. 8, 1996.

He weighed only a pound and a half and died 15 days later.

Their second child, Sean, 7, was born prematurely at 35 weeks. He developed a severe, life-threatening food allergy when he was a year old that continues to affect him — and will for his entire life.

They thought Emily would be problem free, though. The pregnancy had gone smoothly and to full term.

But when she was born on June 13, 2001, Mr. and Mrs. Villalonga found out news that devastated them — their daughter had been born without ears.

They were lost in the beginning, feeling guilty, and wondering "why us?"

Now, four years later, Emily has the chance to have ears and normal hearing through five or more surgeries starting in July.

"Not a day goes by where we don't think about the surgeries," Mrs. Villalonga said. "Twenty years ago they didn't have this. She just wouldn't have been able to hear."

Emily, 3, was born with bilateral microtia, a rare disease in which a person has two incompletely formed ears. It affects around 1 in 100,000 children. In most cases, 1 in 10,000, only one ear is affected.

The whole family will go to California for the first surgery this summer. Dr. Joseph Roberson from the California Ear Institute in San Francisco will perform atresia repair on her left ear on July 21. He will drill through the bony ear canal, create an eardrum and align the canal with the outer ear.

Mrs. Villalonga and Emily will go in the fall for surgery on her right ear.

She will have three more surgeries at the Division of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery at Children's Hospital Los Angeles with Dr. John F. Reinisch, a plastic surgeon.

Dr. Reinisch will use medpor (biocompatible plastic) to create a left ear around the canal in February 2006. The right ear will be created in May 2006. They will have to go back once more to have flops created for both ears.

"So we have a lot of trips to California," Mrs. Villalonga said. "Insurance covers most of it but it doesn't include travel. We have to stay eight or nine days for the checkups."

Mrs. Villalonga said she's very anxious about all these surgeries.

"Part of me says I don't want to do it," she said. "I don't want to put her through it. We worry but we think it's the best thing for her when she gets older."

Mrs. Villalonga said so far it has not been that bad for Emily. She handles it well, and seems like a normal 3-year-old: she loves Barbie dolls, playing pretend and getting dressed up.

She's very social, unlike most children with her condition.

She had early intervention. She got her hearing aid when she was a month old. She started speech therapy when she was about 4 months old.

Emily's hearing aid consists of a microphone, cord and bone conductor. It is kept between the fabrics of the blue jean headband she wears, which covers her ears and makes them hardly noticeable.

Mrs. Villalonga said Emily hasn't been ridiculed, and they're thankful. They're hopeful she will have new ears and normal hearing by the time she enters kindergarten because that's the age when kids start noticing differences.

In the beginning, Mr. and Mrs. Villalonga didn't have the hope of surgery, though. They blamed themselves. There was a lot of crying. Mrs. Villalonga wondered if the problems were caused by something she ate when she was pregnant. Mr. Villalonga wondered if it was his genetics.

A support group helped them. They did a lot of research on the Internet. The research showed that doctors didn't know what causes the disease.

"The more I learned, the less guilt I felt," Mrs. Villalonga said.

They didn't have to do a lot of research on Sean's disease. Mrs. Villalonga's grandfather had celiac sprue disease, a genetic food allergy to gluten, and it skipped a generation.

Sean had a lot of complications when he was a year old. He wasn't growing in height or weight. He was getting sicker and sicker every week because he was malnourished.

Mrs. Villalonga suspected that Sean had his grandfather's disease. However, it took six months and a change in doctors for him to be diagnosed.

Sean always has to watch what he eats. He's even started to read food labels on his own. If he eats gluten, it will cause damage to his small intestine and his body will have trouble absorbing nutrients.

Everything he eats has to be specially bought through mail order and in health stores. Gluten is in wheat, barley, rye and some oats, which includes many foods Sean loved like Cheerios, and mac and cheese.

"We consider ourselves lucky even though we're special needs parents," Mrs. Villalonga said. "My son's fixed by diet. Emily will be fixed by surgery."

She said they will not have another child. With all of their pregnancy problems, they are counting their blessings for having such wonderful children.

"We hope that if there's anyone who has a child like this, they know there's nothing to worry about and that the outcome or future will bring great things," Mr. Villalonga said. "It's nothing to look at tragically, but something to grow from."

For more information, visit: www.microtia.net, www.californiaearinstitute.com, www.hopeforkids.com, www.csaceliacs.org

By Melissa Edmond