An "Unfrogettable" First Birthday!

A couple weeks ago, we celebrated the 1st birthday of our little miracle--better known to the world as Landon Knight Carver. His first year of life has been wonderful. He has brought our family so much joy and filled our home with endless laughter.



Why do I refer to him as "our little miracle", you might be wondering? He was and is our miracle in so many ways. Here are just a couple:

As a woman who has struggled with infertility her entire married life, you can imagine my suprise upon discovering in the Spring of 2007 that I was pregnant without having had months (or years) of temperature charting and blood tests, medical appointments or Chlomid treatments. We were elated to find out that for once, all on its own, my body was able to provide the proper environment to not only create a life, but also provide a temporary home for our soon-to-be third child.

We were in the middle of a move to our new home. I knew a fair amount of fatigue was normal and to be expected as we were busy cleaning and packing and transporting our "stuff" to and fro. But, when Josh caught me taking 20 minute "power naps" in the car while he single-handedly loaded dressers and mattresses into the moving van, we started having our suspicions. Sure enough, I was pregnant. This was the first miracle.



Things in my pregnancy seemed to progress normally. At around 16 weeks, I remember going in for some routine blood tests, one of which was a check for Down Syndrome. I honestly didn't give the test a 2nd thought...until I received a phone call from a nurse two days later letting me know my results were positive for Downs. You can imagine the days that followed were full of many emotions and questions. I was relieved to receive a follow-up call from my OBGYN who explained to me that the results of my lab tests, combined with my age and other factors put me in the high risk category for Down Syndrome, but that it didn't mean that my baby would definitely be born with Downs. He explained to me about further testing I could opt to have done, that could verify our baby's condition, but with those tests came certain risks, including miscarriage. I'll never forget what my doctor then said to me: "Jennifer, if the results of an amniocentesis won't change what you choose to do about your pregnancy, I'd advise against it. Even a small chance of miscarriage is not worth it." (My doctor was LDS by-the-way, and had a good feeling that I would not be choosing to terminate the pregnancy, regardless of the outcome.) Of course I assured my OB that we would not be terminating the pregnancy under any circumstances and that we would love this little baby with or without the syndrome. I asked the doctor if there were any other, less risky tests that could be done to give us some sort of idea about our baby's development. He said that a more intense ultrasound could be done that would check for markers that would be indicative of Downs.



We scheduled the more thorough ultrasound, organized a family fast & Josh gave me a priesthood blessing. We felt a great peace.

On the day of the ultrasound, the ultrasound tech assured us that from everything she could observe, the baby appeared to be healthy and "normal". We felt so relieved and grateful that Landon appeared healthy and free from disabilities. Our little miracle was born on December 13, 2007.

We love him so much and look forward to celebrating many more birthdays to come.