Our Babies

Our Babies
Luke and Claire

"Welcome to Holland"

By Emily Perl Kingsley, 1987. All rights reserved.


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're going to have a baby, it's like planning a fabulous vacation trip - to Italy. You buy a bunch of guide books and make your wonderful plans. The Coliseum. The Michelangelo David. The gondolas in Venice. You may learn some handy phrases in Italian. It's 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 a horrible, disgusting, filthy place, full of pestilence, famine and disease. It's just a different place.

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

And the pain of that will never, ever, ever, ever go away...because the loss of that dream is a very very significant loss. But...if you spend your life mourning the fact that you didn't get to Italy, you may never be free to enjoy the very special, the very lovely things ... about Holland.

Friday, April 23, 2010

Visitors


Sorry we didn't post anything yesterday - it was 10:45 when we returned from the hospital and no post we did was going to make sense :)

Luke started off the day very sad because Grandma Godinez told him she had to go back to Wichita. Luckily, she got to spend some time with him by herself at the hospital so she could hold him without sharing. While they were together, she and Luke made a surprise card for Patrick and I when we made our
visit later in the day. We were just as sad as Luke to see her go since she was a huge help/support though this first week. Thankfully, she can't stand to stay away from Luke for too long, so she should be returning when Luke is healthy and finally home.

Then, to cheer up the day, our friends Suzi and Heather came up to snuggle with Luke. Suzi had been begging for days to pinch Luke's chubby thighs and she finally had her chance! Plus, it gave me some much needed "girl time".

In between all of the excitement with visitors Luke also had another bottle. Although he didn't do quite as well as the doctor would have liked, he managed to drink over 1/2 of it with no problem! His breathing is getting much better though, so he's showing lots of promise after one week in NICU.

4 comments:

  1. UnknownApril 23, 2010 at 7:32 PM

    I want to hold him too...give him a big kiss from the Moncriefs!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Ronnie and SuziApril 23, 2010 at 8:34 PM

    Who me?! Beg?! Noooo...can't be. I'm sure I just asked nicely...repeatedly ;) Is that the same thing? Oh but it was worth every minute of waiting! And I am up for more 'girl time' ANYTIME!!!

    ReplyDelete
  3. Ronnie and SuziApril 23, 2010 at 8:36 PM

    BTW, LOVE the pic of Grandma holding Luke!! Good to see that!

    ReplyDelete
  4. The ScottsApril 24, 2010 at 12:15 PM

    Wish I was there to pinch his checks! Love you all!

    ReplyDelete

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