Noah's Family

Over the five years we have been married and the 8 we have been together, my husband

and I have had many long conversations on how we wanted to build our family. We

wanted to make such a life changing decision with the care it deserved. Embedded in our

discussions was the importance of those with Down syndrome and other disabilities in our

lives and the world. Emily grew up with a brother with Down syndrome and now works

with adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities in her medical practice.

Adopting a child with Down syndrome felt like the right path for our family.

Then, after hours of further discussion of the best path to pursue adoption and ensuring

we could do so as ethically as possible, we started the process in the spring of 2021. We

came across the National Down Syndrome Adoption Network and immediately knew we

wanted to work with them. We were impressed by their focus on support and education

for birth families. We strongly felt that families should have the opportunity and support

needed to make the choice to parent if that was the right choice for them.

We completed our home study and were placed on the NDSAN registry in the fall. We

were excited to finally be on the registry and have the potential of becoming parents at

any time. We knew that welcoming a child into our family would change our lives

dramatically no matter when we were lucky enough to be matched. We worked incredibly

hard to tamper our excitement, anticipating the wait could be months to years. Much to

our surprise, we were matched within a few weeks! It is hard to describe the joy, stress,

and chaos in the weeks that followed. Being first time parents, we had not one diaper in

our home at the time we were matched. Our friends and family lovingly supported us and

helped us in getting all that we needed.

A few weeks later, we were on the road to meet our son, Noah. It would be one of the

most surreal yet amazing road trips of our lives. We have so enjoyed every moment of

getting to know him and learning what he has to teach us. It is hard to even remember

what life was like without him!

Throughout the adoption process, we daydreamed about life would be like with a 3 rd

member of our family. However, we were lucky to find that welcoming Noah’s birth

mother into our lives was equally as meaningful. We will never forget the first Skype call

we had with her and feeling like we would have a great ongoing connection. We are glad

to have the opportunity to build our extended family as well.

Emily’s brother loves his new nephew Noah.

September 2022

We are so excited to be celebrating Noah’s first year of life and adoption finalization (we finalized the day before his birthday). We are very grateful for the financial support from GLADS. We will be celebrating with a small party on Saturday and going to the Down syndrome walk Sunday!

Noah is working hard and making many strides in therapy. He is an incredibly smiley and happy baby and is very motivated to move. He is social and loves music. We can't wait to learn more about his personality as he gets older.

September 2023

He is truly thriving and we love having him in our lives. 

He is certainly our little angel