The day our world changed...

I still remember that day, I remember the words, and I remember the sinking feeling in my stomach that brought me to my knees..

"I have the results of your amnio, and indeed your baby has down syndrome.  Do you have any questions?......Have a nice weekend."

With the click of the phone back on it's cradle, I fell to the floor.  With those words, delivered so coldly, our world had been rocked, and as much as we had prepared ourselves for the possibility that this was the answer that we were going to get, the wind was knocked out my sail.  Bryan was a work preparing for a month long training session in California and I was home alone with Rory.  Alone.  How was I going to tell Bryan this?  How was he going to understand one word that I was trying to get out?  I had to do it, I couldn't be alone in knowing this about our baby.  I collected myself, got up off the floor, and grabbed the phone and dialed.

The only words I got out were "The genetic counselor just called..." and then the tears started and I couldn't saying anything else.  I remember hearing Bryan say "It's all going to be OK, this baby is ours and we are going to love it, and that's all that matters."  With those words, I wasn't alone anymore.

Brendan was meant for us, for our family.  I have never had doubt about that, and I know he was given to us for a reason and that everything was going to be OK.  I had prayed a few months before when I was having complications early on in the pregnancy that this baby not be taken from us, I couldn't go through losing another baby.  Once we got through the critical first 12 weeks of the pregnancy, and we heard the baby's heart beat in the midwife's office, I knew that this baby was ours for a special reason.

That was how our journey into the Down Syndrome family began, and what a journey it has been, and continues to be.