Now, you may remember when I started this story, how I talked about the delicate balance of our experiences with joy and sorrow in our lives. How all of the sayings speak that you can't know true joy until you've tasted of sorrow... but how I personally don't believe that we can truly experience either without the other. True joy without having ever known sorrow, nor true sorrow without joy?

I think I can say for certain now that I've experienced both.

I rose to the top of my own personal pillar of joy in July 2012 with the birth of my son. Having experienced enough joy in my life (the successes of my career, learning to love myself, falling in love with someone else, and my son) to overcome any of the sorrows, even the big ones, I could truly say I felt like I was on top of the world.

Of course, the only way to go from the top is down... and it hit hard and fast with the truest sorrow I would ever know. The very worst day of my entire life.

Before I really begin this story though... I think I should add that I can never do it justice. I will never be able to recall all of the moments and memories, nor all that was said and done. But this is the story of our son and it must be told. Because without Jackson we wouldn't be where we are today. Without our son, there would be no Faith. His story is our story. His story is her story.

So I will try.

It all began on July 7th, 2012, just two days after Jackson's birth when I wheeled Jenna into the NICU for her very first visit with our brand new son. On doctor's orders she'd been forced to remain in bed the day before, unable to visit the son she longed to touch and hold and simply SEE for the first time, so I'd taken dozens of pictures on my phone and we sat together in bed for hours and just looked at him together.

That's not the same though and I could tell the moment Jenna laid eyes on our baby boy, snoozing away in his isolette. I held tight to her arm as I felt her body go slack beside mine. I watched as she reached her hands through the holes and touched his tiny body. She started with his feet, examining each part of him so carefully. She removed his socks and touched his tiny toes gently, sliding her finger into the spaces between his toes. She held his hands in hers, turning them over gently and running her hands along the lines on his tiny palms. She stroked his soft dark hair and ran a finger down his nose between his eyes. He opened them then, wiggling around a bit before looking at her. I watched as a single tear rolled down my wife's cheek.

"He sure is beautiful isn't he?" I asked as I pulled her close, reaching my own hand in and placing it on top of where her hand rested on our son's bare chest. I could feel his tiny heart beating furiously there beneath the spot where our fingers enterlaced.

Jenna bit her lip and nodded, clearly trying to fight back the tears that continued to slip from her eyes. I reached up to help her wipe them from her cheek with the back of my hand.

I looked at our son laying there in the bed below us, I saw the tubes running in and out of his tiny body and I tried to remember all of the things the nurses and doctors had told me over the past two days to try and make me feel better about this whole crappy situation.

"The doctor said he's doing really good," I whispered, wiping more tears away and fighting my own now. "He said that Jack is strong. That he's a real fighter. I mean, I guess if you've gotta start this life as something, a fighter's a pretty damn good thing."

Jenna smiled her first real smile since entering the room. She nodded and looked up at me. I kissed her forehead and we both watched as our little fighter wiggled around before us, stopping every now and then to look up and check us out.

After a few minutes Jenna's tears started inexplicably flowing again.

"What is it baby? Do you need to sit down?" I asked, motioning to the chair behind us, concerned that she was in more pain than she was letting on.

She shook her head. "Nick, it's just I..."

But her words were cut short when the doctor entered the room. Jenna hurried to him and shook his hand, turning to me quickly to introduce him. I was still getting used to the idea that Jenna knew most of the doctors and nurses in this hospital... so it caught me off guard how easily and readily she felt comfortable with the people around her when I was always so guarded.

"Nick," she spoke quickly, "This is Dr. Robeschard. He's going to be Jack's pediatrician."

I nodded and smiled, introduced myself and shook the doctor's hand. I was slightly confused though, wondering why we were meeting a pediatrician so soon when Jackson was still under the care of the neonatal specialists.

Then the doctor spoke.

"I talked with Karen yesterday about your concerns and after some further investigations, we decided to go ahead and run the tests you asked about."

I shook my head and looked questioningly towards Jenna. Who was Karen... and what tests? It was clear she was totally focused on what the doctor was saying though, so she couldn't answer my questions.

"And..." I heard Jenna ask, but then she stopped for a minute, and reached out for me. I could tell that she was nervous about something, so I went to her side and took the hand she was extending.

"What's going on?" I whispered, but she didn't respond.

"Well," the doctor continued, "the results from the chromsomal karyotype testing won't be back for a week... so at this point no one can say for certain, but..."

"But..." Jenna continued for him, "he's got so many symptoms. The epicanthal folds, the space between his toes, the simian crease..."

The doctor nodded. Jenna nodded back and released a deep sigh, wiping more tears from her eyes. I just stood there baffled.

Finally after a few moments I couldn't take the silence anymore. "What are you talking about? epi-whatever folds and creases?" I asked... "I don't get it. Is something wrong with Jackson?"

The doctor started to speak, but Jenna shook her head.

"No," she whispered... and I'll never, as long as I live, forget the next words she said to me, because it was the beginning of acceptance, for both of us, even if I didn't know it at the time. "Jackson is perfect." And she went to our son's isolette and peered in, reaching inside and stroking his soft hair once more. "He's just perfectly flawed."

And then my wife turned to me and delivered the most shocking news I ever could have imagined. "Nick," she whispered, shaking her head as the tears flowed more freely than ever, "Jackson has Down Syndrome."

I felt myself go numb then. What? And you would think you would feel a thousand different emotions in a moment like that, but no, not really. I felt nothing. Not sadness, or anger... or anything really. Or at least not really anything different. I looked down at my boy, laying there in the same spot he'd been laying before I knew... and he looked the same to me. In fact, he was the same to me. He was my son. I still felt that same immense love. It was just... it was weird.

I remember reaching into his isolette and holding his fingers in mine and I remember him looking up at me, much the same way as he'd done on the night he was born and I think it was in that moment that it hit me. And it wasn't so much a feeling of shock that I felt. Looking back, I think I simply wondered how I had sat beside my child's isolette for two days without ever seeing a thing and all Jenna had to do was glance at a few photos to know that something was different. For a minute I'll admit that I felt like I'd failed my son in some way. Like I should have known. Like I should have been able to look into his eyes and see the same thing my wife had seen.

But all I could see... and all I still could see was love. And I turned to Jenna, the tears still streaming down her cheeks, and I thought what a burden that must have felt like... to have to be the one to know. To have to be the one to feel like something was wrong and to tell a doctor that. And for a fleeting moment I will also admit that I wondered in my mind if Jenna loved our son the way I did. But that moment didn't last too long, because it was obvious in the way she looked at him. In the way she touched him and sat beside him for hours a day, and in the way she held him when that time came... and in the way she cried...

Oh she loved him alright... maybe more sometimes.

Close friends ask me sometimes how I changed when I found out about Jackson's Down Syndrome. I would like to say that I didn't really change, that I was still the same person... but I did. In good ways, and in not so good ways.

I'll admit that in those first few days, before we got the official results, I still didn't really allow myself to believe it was even real. That the things Jenna and our nurses saw were just little coincidences. That the gap between his toes was just a gap and the single line on the palm of his hand may suddenly become two if I studied it hard enough. I mean, Jackson never looked extremely "Downsy" as some people might say. So at first, I really didn't change. Like I said before, I didn't feel much different. I still loved my son as fiercely as before and I never really felt anger or sadness... even after we found out for certain.

There were moments though, after that Friday when the doctor came to us, early in the morning and handed us the test results that confirmed 100% that our son had Trisomy 21 -- the fancier definition of Down Syndrome. The first moment I rememeber was when I wondered how I would tell my friends. Brian, Howie, Kevin and AJ... everyone who'd anticipated adding this little boy to the BSB family as much as we had. How would I tell them that his life would be different. That this little guy was "special". Because even though I hated that definition, to us, he would be. How would I let them know that tour buses and crowded airports would be out of the question. That touring with our baby would have to be different.

Jenna and I had started reading books and studying as much as we could and we were beginning to realize what all would go into raising a child with Down Syndrome, and busy schedules that didn't fit a babies routine would no longer work for us.

And I'll never forget the day I spoke to Howie on the phone... before we'd told anyone. He was talking about our sons all growing up together and how awesome it would be if they could be close and start a band or travel the world together just like we've done. And as much as I hate to admit this to anyone, the only image I could ever create of my grown up son was the image of an adult fully dependent upon his parents.

These images faded over the weeks as we grew to love our son even more without knowing it was possible. As we got the chance to hold him in our arms and feed him for the first time. As we watched him grow and change from the tiny baby in the isolette, dependent on the machines to live to the chunky little guy so close to going home.

And then finally, we introduced Jackson to our family and closest friends and watched them fall as fiercely in love with him as we were. And I will say now that nothing will make you love your friends as much as watching them love your child. I now know what Brian meant when he said that it meant the world to him to see his friends with Baylee because man, the first time I saw my best friend hold my son... I felt a whole new respect for what he's been doing the past 9 years with his own son.

So if you ask me now how I changed, I'd tell you that my son taught me to love unconditionally. He taught me that every human is worthy of love and that I am a lot less immature than I ever could have imagined I would be.

If only I had known what life was getting ready to throw my way.