The start of a journey

Three years ago, on this date March 12 2007, it was a Monday. A sunny Monday and a hectic Monday at work. Cliff was taking half a day off from work at his job in the city because we were having a second level ultrasound for our second child. Somehow we managed to schedule the ultrasound for around 17 or 18 weeks which we found out later was about 2 or 3 weeks earlier than what is the norm. I am not sure how we managed to get into the ultrasound a few weeks early but given the prognosis we recieved a few days after the ultrasound I am glad that someone somewhere messed up on the scheduling. I like to look back and think that God had a hand in that mixup. I had received an ultrasound or 2 before this date, but they had been basic ultrasounds on the doctors old machine at his office. This was the official level 2 ultrasound that would tell us if we were having a boy or a girl!
I managed to leave the office just in time to make it over to the ultrasound room at the hospital and as I drove over there my mind was preoccupied with the thought that I really wanted to have a girl but I reminded myself over and again that I would love a boy too and not to be disappointed if that's what we were having.
The ultrasound technician was very pleasant and seemed very knowledgeable. She spent a long time looking at some of the images and said she just couldn't tell if it was a boy or a girl. She even called a colleague into the room to look at the ultrasound screen. They seemed to take a lot of images of the babies midsection and the ultrasound tech assured us it was because she had a hard time capturing it just right. I began to grow a little nervous but remained oblivious to any problems. I was so happy to see images of our child's face and foot which they printed out for us to keep. I left the ultrasound disappointed that we wouldn't know if we were going to have a boy or a girl for the rest of the pregnancy( unless we could talk the doctor into another ultrasound which I was already plotting in my head as we left) but very happy to see my little one. We would not receive the full ultrasound report for a few days yet, so our world remained worry free and well adjusted.
It seems ironic to me when I look back at the dates that we had Faith's level 2 ultrasound on March 12th and received the news of complications from the ultrasound report on March 14th- with National Trisomy 13 awareness day smack in the middle of those two days on March 13th. But I will share more about the day I received that call from the Dr on March 14th in a few days.
Today, I will just think about the moment that I first saw my daughters face(via ultrasound) and remained innocent to the knowledge of her difficult journey- our difficult journey- ahead.