How are we gonna tell everyone???

Once we accepted and appreciated our situation, we weren't sure how to tell people.  This has to be one of the hardest parts for families in our situation.  We wanted people to know not to feel sorry for us, but be happy for us, just as they would for any typical baby.  We did not, however, want to relive the experience hundreds of times.  We decided that a letter to everyone was the best way to spread the news.  Below is an exact copy of the letter we sent to family and friends that we knew would be a part of our daughters life:

"

• Ever since Alexi had decided to join us early, we've had a pretty wild ride. Some big scares at first, followed by some truely outstanding progress. One thing that we've known since birth, we decided to hold off on telling everyone until we got the test results back. This one obstacle, isn't one she can just push through and be done with like the rest she has dealt with so well. Alexi has an extra copy of chromosome 21 giving her 47 total, instead of the 46 we all have. This means that she has down syndrome, Trisomy Down Syndrome is what the initial test shows. We would love to address everyone personally with the news but decided that it is just too difficult to make that many phone calls.
  
  The work load of making the calls is all we are trying to avoid, we are in no way upset to talk about it with people. We would love to hear from you and be even happier to answer any questions you may have. We are not experts on this at all and have so much to learn but can answer anything we know the answers to.
  
  Now for the mixed emotions. I know this feels like bad news to most of you, hell it definitely felt that way to us at first. Honestly noone ever thinks it would happen to them...we felt cheated, and mourned the loss of the idea of our perfectly normal little girl. Then we met her.
  
  Alexi had her swollen face (from all her excess fluid she's been losing quite well) and it showed all of the features you associate with downs. It was hard at first seeing it in her, but we soon became just overwhelmed with the joy of knowing we hadn't lost her. Our mourning we felt was over the idea of a typical newborn. Just that, an idea.
  
  Mourning is a much easier process when you get to see your perfectly unique little angel right there in front of you, breathing, heart beating, and squirming around. It's easier because we hadn't lost anything real, just that idea. We now have a whole new adventure that we never even considered. One filled with extra joy and some special moments that will be unique to people in our situation.
  
  If you haven't seen how she's doing, check my status's and messages from earlier, she's doing GREAT. I would tell you again but that's just bragging.
  
  Please dont hesitate to call or message us, as we are anxious to get to talk to everyone and move forward in this new adventure. If you want our conversation private, start a new message to one of us, but this is not a secret. There are alot of people we didnt get to reach with this letter so if anyone asks about her, and you are not comfortable telling them, have them give us a call.
  
  Again we would have loved to call all of you but writing a letter was much easier on us, and PLEASE don't hesitate to call."

This approach worked very well for us and encourage anyone going through a similar situation to use/change our letter as they see fit, if they want.