Welcome to Holland

When I was pregnant with Teryn I read every one of the baby books I was "supposed" to. I followed my week by week pregnancy book and made sure everything I was experiencing was in line with what I read. Every check up and ultrasound showed a healthy baby that was progressing well. The only issue during my entire pregnancy was the extra amniotic fluid during my third trimester. So, as all other expecting mothers, I assumed that the baby inside of me was going to be the main character of the story I had played over and over in my mind. Less than an hour after my delivery I realized that was going to be very far from the story that would really play out over the next few months. I remember standing at the crib in the NICU and thinking, "Where is my do-over, this is not the way it was supposed to be. This is not what I prepared myself for."

Thankfully, with God's grace, life with Teryn has been FAR and BEYOND the happiness I ever expected. I would not change a thing because she has taught us how to truly love unconditionally, what is really important, and how to be grateful and happy in every little small thing. I feel like she has won valedictorian when she finally grabs a toy, follows the sound of my voice, or tries to communicate with sounds. So, can you imagine how ecstatic I will be when she really does make valedictorian!

I came across an essay that has been shared by many parents of special needs children. It has been around for a while, but I cannot imagine any words that more correctly sum up the feelings when you are the parent of a special needs child and finally realize how much luckier you are than everyone else.

Welcome to Holland

I am often asked to describe the experience of raising a child with a disability

-to try to help people who have not shared that unique

experience to understand it, to imagine how it would feel, It's like this.....

When you are going to have a baby, it's like planning a fabulous vacation trip

-to Italy.

You buy a bunch of guidebooks and make your wonderful plans.

The colliseum, the Michelangelo David, the gondolas in Venice. You may learn some handy phrases in Italian. It is all very exciting.

After months of eager anticipation, the day finally arrives. You pack your bags and off you go. Several hours later, the plane lands. The stewardess comes in and says, "Welcome to Holland."

"Holland?!" you say. "What do you mean, Holland? I signed up for Italy! I'm supposed to be in Italy. All my life I've dreamed of going to Italy."

But there's been a change in the flight plan. They've landed in Holland and there you must stay.

The important thing is that they haven't taken you to some horrible, disgusting, filthy place, full of pestilence, famine and disease. It's just a different place.

So you must go out and buy a new guidebook. And you must learn a whole new language. And you will meet a whole new group of people you would have never met.

It's just a different place. It's slower paced than Italy, less flashy than Italy. But after you've been there for a while and you catch your breath, you look around, and you begin to notice that Holland has windmills, Holland has tulips, Holland even has Rembrandts.

But everyone you know is busy coming and going from Italy, and they're all bragging about what a wonderful time they had there. And for the rest of your life you will say, "Yes, that's where I was supposed to go. That's what I had planned."

The pain of that will never, ever go away, because the loss of that dream is a significant loss.

But if you spend your life mourning the fact that you didn't get to go to Italy, you may never be free to enjoy the very special, the very lovely things about Holland.

Written by Emily Pearl Kingsley