Meeting our Baby Boy

Noah Stewart Johnson was born at 9:28pm on June 17th. We chose the name Noah because it means comfort and rest. We chose the name Stewart in honor of Melissa's dad who passed away in September of 2009. He is the most beautiful baby we have ever seen and we miss him every second of every day.

The whole process took about 24 hours from the start of induction to delivery. We spent about an hour with Noah after he was born. We spent another night at the hospital to make sure there were no complications and then went home at about 9am Friday morning. Physically, Melissa is recovering well.

We appreciate all of the phone calls, texts, emails, and Facebook messages. It is amazing to us how many people care about what is going on in our lives. We love you all. Thank you for sharing this journey with us. While we do not understand why this happened, we know that God has a plan for us and we are excited about what the future holds.

More bad news

We went to the doctor earlier yesterday (6/16) and they were not able to detect a heartbeat. After 26 weeks, this journey is coming to an end. The outcome is obviously not what we wanted or ever imagined would happen, but we're trusting God's sovereignty on this one since we can't really make sense of it. There is comfort in knowing that our baby boy is healed and resting eternally with his heavenly father.

Melissa was induced last night and hopefully the baby will be delivered sometime today, although it can take quite a while when labor is induced so early. Right now, Melissa is resting. She got an epidural an hour ago so right now the physical pain is pretty low. Please pray for Melissa's safety and comfort through the delivery process, as well as for our healing.

We're pretty devastated but we know we'll be ok. Thanks for your prayers and for loving us. We'll post again once our little boy has been delivered.

Heavy Hearts

We write this update today with very heavy hearts. We had another ultrasound this morning to find out if our baby is growing. It turns out that as a result of the down syndrome, his little body does not know how to use the nutrition it is getting. He has hardly grown at all in the last 3 weeks. Chances are that he will stop growing all together. Unfortunately, he is not yet big enough to live outside the womb so there is nothing we can do to save him. Our hope rests now in God that He will choose to save our baby boy. There is a small chance that he could start growing and reach the point of viability. We return to the doctor next week to get another ultrasound to see how he is doing. We ask that everyone pray with us for a miracle.

Brief Update

We spent a few hours today with our new nurse practioner Deb. She is AWESOME! Not only did she not make us feel stupid when we showed up for our appointment 4 hours early (totally Melissa's fault!) but she was also super sensitive to my (Melissa) emotional breakdowns and provided an incredible amount of support for us already. We feel blessed to be connected to her. Our main source of support will now be her and the Mile High Down Syndrome Association. Sometime soon, the MHDSA will call us so we can get connected with a mentor family. They will also be our main source of information and help us get connected with resources that we will need after Junior is born. It is so nice to know that we don't have to figure this all out ourselves. They will hold our hands the whole way and we could not be more greatful for that. We also got 2 books today that we are looking forward to reading. Our next appointment is on Wednesday the 9th and we will get another ultrasound to make sure Junior is still growing. We will continue to go to the doctor every 2 weeks and get an ultrasound every 4 weeks to measure growth.

Right now, we are continuing to get ready for Junior to come! Since bed rest will most likely be in Melissa's future, we hope to have everything ready by the end of July. Melissa is feeling SO much better these days and has a lot more energy... part of that could be that she is no longer working and doesn't deal with teenage drama everyday anymore :) We continue to be thankful for all of the support we have received over the last few weeks.