“I’m so sorry.” Those were the first words Rick and his wife heard shortly after delivering their blue eyed baby boy. They were just told their son, Noah, has Down syndrome. "My wife was then offered antidepressants, which she declined. While she was shocked and taken back by their son's surprise diagnosis she knew what she was feeling was normal, and didn't require antidepressants." Rick’s wife is a doctor and was shocked at how her medical team was responding. She denied the antidepressants and Rick armed himself with his laptop and began researching Down syndrome to better understand this journey they were about to embark on.

“I found a lot of blogs, a lot of information but didn’t find a lot of video,” recalls Rick. And that’s the inspiration for www.noahsdad.com, an online story about his son and their family that includes personalized commentary with daily 1 minute videos of what is going on in their lives that day. “I think there is a lot of power in storytelling so I decided to tell a story…and not the story the OBGYNs are telling, but give people a window into what really happens every day,” said Rick. And it is working. Noah’s Dad has over 15,000 likes on Facebook and nearly 7,000 followers on Twitter. “It isn’t just about our family, we want it to be about all the families and their living stories, we’re living a pretty typical life, no one has their child sitting in the corner…we just want people to see our stories and say, ‘Down syndrome isn’t really that big of a deal,’ because it really isn’t a big deal,” clarifies Rick.

Some of Rick’s favorite dad moments are shared next.