My husband Andy and I found out we were pregnant with our third child in August 2016. In November, we went in for his 20 week ultra-sound. We found out our baby would be a boy.

A few days later on November 22, 2016, I got a phone call from an expert doctor and they told me they saw some problems with our son's kidneys and wanted to take another ultrasound. That same day they brought us into the ultrasound room where we met a genetic expert, a prenatal expert doctor and an ultrasound expert. They began taking pictures and examining our baby. We learned our baby had a cystic kidney, meaning his left kidney did not form and instead was cysts and fluid. Also his left arm was completely absent, his heart was rotated 90 degrees to the left and possibly had other problems but they did not have the technology to do a more in depth investigation. The doctors explained when babies are found with complex issues like this, they can often miscarry, or have severe special needs. The ultrasound technician said in 30 years of doing this he had maybe seen 1 other baby missing a limb.

Since these anomalies were so rare, they did not know what to expect with our baby and we were told to expect more problems and issues. We were asked about the possibility of terminating the pregnancy, but we said no. We wanted to love him no matter what.

We left the doctor shocked, confused, and scared. However my husband told me that we would make him successful no matter what, whatever that meant for him. If it meant him simply surviving day to day, or living a joyful, long and prosperous life. We began to pray for miracles, we prayed his arm would miraculously form, we prayed for health and wisdom. Most of all we prayed that God would be honored through our baby. We were determined to seek the positives and be optimistic no matter what we faced, because God was with us.

Over the next few months, we had numerous exams and appointments for our baby. Usually one or two per week. We learned that his intestines had not formed properly and there was a blockage in his intestines, so his body could not pass amniotic fluid and he began to produce excessive amounts of it, making the last weeks of the pregnancy extremely uncomfortable. At one point 2 and a half liters of fluid were drained from me, and within a couple weeks the baby had replaced the fluid again.

We continued to pray for miracles for our baby and we remained faithful that God was in control. We considered several baby names for our son. We decided he would need to be a warrior and would need to fight for every day of his life and we knew he was a fighter. So we named him Joshua, after the warrior in the old testament. We settled on Toby for his middle name, because it meant "God is good," so everybody that met him would be reminded that no matter what, God is good.

March 23, I started to get strong contractions. We called the hospital and told them we were coming. It was about 4:15 pm and we were going to have the baby at Rocky Mountain Hospital for Children, in the heart of downtown Denver. Our house is in suburban Littleton, which was about 45 minutes from the hospital, without rush hour traffic. Because of Joshua's issues we knew his birth would be dramatic.

As we began our drive I began to get bone rattling, toe curling contractions. Of course every road, highway and side street was congested with traffic for rush hour. My husband began taking drastic measures like driving on the shoulder and weaving through traffic in our minivan all while using the maps app to find points of traffic congestion and the best routes. I began screaming "he is coming," multiple times because I felt pressure. About another 10 minutes of white knuckle driving through the streets of downtown Denver and we made to the hospital at about 5:45.

The nurses began to calmly examine me. I began to have a contraction, and the nurse said she could feel the babies head, and surprisingly exclaimed "oh your in labor labor!" Moments later our delivery room was flooded with 15 doctors and nurses. A few mighty pushes later Joshua came out at 6:21! Our miracle had arrived, but we were not out of the woods yet.

They set Joshua on me so they could cut the cord and then whisked him to the little table under a heat lamp. It was apparent to my husband that Joshua was not breathing, he had facial expressions and he was trying to cry but there was no air. He was as blue as a blueberry, especially his face. Doctors and nurses calmly began working on him. They intubated him and a ventilator began breathing for Joshua and his heart rate was found and brought to a normal level after a couple minutes passed. He turned to me and said "he is breathing now," with a sigh of relief. I replied with surprise saying "he wasn't breathing?"

As the crowd began to clean up the mess, and stabilize the delivery room. Joshua was transported to the NICU in another wing of the hospital. For the first few hours, doctors examined Joshua and they told us the ventilator was doing all of the breathing for him and there was lots of debris in his lungs. They did an exam of his heart and found two holes in his heart, one with significant size and another was small and benign. Generally Joshua's outlook was positive and we were excited for what was to come. We celebrated the miracle of his birth. Little did we know it was just the start.