American Ninja Warrior Competitor and Wife Adopt Child with Special Needs After Losing Infant Son

The couple, who had wanted children so much, was devastated, but there was more that God had in store for them

By Nancy Flanders
Live Action News

In a story that played out like a popular TV drama (This is Us, anyone?), American Ninja Warrior contestant Josh Butler and his wife Katie were expectant parents who would devastatingly not bring their firstborn child home from the hospital. Yet in the midst of their deep grief, their hearts full of love, loss, and a future ripped away, they saw beyond themselves and adopted another baby who was in need of parents.

“Our first son Dewey was born in May 2015 with a genetic disorder that had never been documented before,” Butler told American Ninja Warrior. “He had trouble breathing. He had trouble eating. There were definitely some dark times, some sad times. Basically, all our waking hours were in the hospital. That’s where he passed away after 132 days.”

The couple, who married in 2012, learned in September of 2014, that they were expecting their first child. But at their 20-week ultrasound, they received heartbreaking news.

“In January 2015, we went in, and they told us there was some thickening of the neck and that the baby had club feet,” Katie Butler told The Daily Advertiser. “Those were all markers for genetic conditions.”

The baby boy, named Josh Dewey Butler IV, tested negative for Trisomy 15, 18, and 21 and doctors couldn’t tell the parents what was happening or if he would survive.

“They said that (ultrasound) machines could only do so much,” said Katie Butler. “and that we might just have a small baby. But as Dewey grew, things looked bad.”

Doctors often struggled to find Dewey’s heartbeat and on May 15, 2015, at 39 weeks gestation, doctors induced labor. When Dewey’s heart rate continued dropping during labor, doctors decided to perform an emergency c-section, and Dewey was born with the umbilical cord wrapped around his neck.

“They said the cord looked like it was only at 20 weeks gestation,” said Katie Butler. “It was not a healthy umbilical cord.”

Initially, the only diagnosis Dewey had was diabetes. But after further testing was done, doctors learned that chromosomes six and 10 had broken off and flip-flopped, but not evenly. Some genetic information was missing, and some was duplicated. Doctors were stumped.

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