She was given statistics. She chose love.
Choosing Noah Foundation helps families after a Down syndrome diagnosis because it is founded on a decision: a mother who was advised to terminate — by her doctors, and then by the people closest to her — and chose her son anyway. The name isn't decorative. Choosing is the whole thesis.
- 2017
The phone call
“Your baby tested positive for Down syndrome.” The results were delivered, in Yami's words, in a robotic and unsympathetic way — a list of statistics and worst-case scenarios, and no hope. Doctors suggested termination. Family agreed. She grieved a child who was still alive inside her, and then she made a choice.
“I made a choice and that choice was LOVE.”
- February 2018
Noah arrives
From the first second she saw him, she knew — and it didn't matter. What she saw was her baby, who in small ways reminded her of each of his brothers when they were born.
“He was definitely my child, and I knew that he was a part of us.”
- May 11, 2018
My heart warrior
A congenital heart defect was confirmed shortly after birth. At three months old, Noah had his first open-heart surgery. Yami and her husband said goodbye at the operating-room door, and when it closed behind them, both fell to the floor crying. It was the first time she had seen her husband's fear.
“On May 11, 2018, I realized that I was not alone.”
- 2018
Super Noah
He fought to be here despite Down syndrome and a heart defect. The family started calling it what it was: a superpower. His superpower is love, and he uses it every minute of the day.
“The “why me?” has now become “why not me?””
- 2020
The blog
During the COVID lockdown, quarantining at home with her sons, Yami started writing. The Diagnosis. Becoming Supermom. My Heart Warrior. The posts became the story a worldwide audience would follow — and the narrative core of this foundation.
- April 2021
Walking
Walking without assistance. Then preschool. Then, one day, “mum.” Yami describes hearing it like hearing someone you love say I love you — proof he knows exactly who she is.
“In our family, we make sure to celebrate the big things and also the little things.”
- 2025
The book
After five years of writing, Yami published the memoir Choosing Noah. To tell Noah's story, she had to first tell her own — going back before the diagnosis, before the surgeries, to who she was when she became a mother at 17.
“Our strength didn't suddenly appear. It was built over time — through love, sacrifice, endurance and faith.”
- 2026
The foundation
The three pillars are named — Choosing Hope, Choosing Community, Choosing Inclusion — and a family's story becomes an organization. Everything it does is a version of standing where Yami stood and telling the next mother she is not alone.
“I was broken when I started this journey and now, I am helping other broken parents with their journey.”
Six commitments that settle every argument.
Hope is delivered, not assumed.
Nobody receives hope by accident. It has to be handed to someone, deliberately, by a person who went first.
Tell the whole truth, both halves.
We talk about grieving a living child and the floor outside an operating room. And then we turn toward joy.
Strength is built, not granted.
We are not an organization of exceptional people. We're proof that ordinary, frightened parents become capable ones — faster, with help.
The person, before the diagnosis.
Noah is a boy who loves school and colors and his brothers, who happens to have Down syndrome and a repaired heart. Language, photographs, and programs follow that order.
The village is the point.
The goal is not that we answer every question. It's that the parent three years ahead of you does.
Celebrate the small things out loud.
Walking. A first word. A color named. In this community the small things are not small.
The whole journey, in Yami's own words.
Six posts on the blog, and a memoir five years in the writing.