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.

Sunday, June 27, 2010

Back to Reality

Well, the trip back to Kansas was my last big event for maternity leave, so that means it is back to reality tomorrow morning. I informed the girls at daycare that I might have to wear my sunglasses when I drop Luke off in the morning to hide my tear-filled eyes. You all know that I cry easier than anyone in the world.  I'm trying to convince Patrick to go with my for moral support, but we'll see if he agrees.

Even though we just came back from vacation, we still managed to have a jam-packed weekend.  First, I went to help my friend, Mandy, celebrate her upcoming wedding. She and her fiance "Pappy" (an Air Force dude) are getting married in South Carolina, but unfortunately, we cannot attend due to the training that Patrick is about to start :(


On Saturday it was time to celebrate Kerry's baby shower! We both lived up in North Dakota, and now we're down here in Shreveport together. We're super excited to have babies so close together, and Luke sure is too because Kerry is having TWO girls!!!

Then, the rest of the weekend was spent getting caught up from vacation. I had a mound of homework to get caught up on, so Luke offered to help me.

  Yeah, we didn't get much done this way, so Patrick had to take over Luke duty so I could finish my paper.

Now, it is Sunday evening, and Luke and I have less than 10 hours of freedom left. We spent some time playing  tonight, and I finally got my first official baby laugh. We've been getting smiles for a few weeks, but nothing in the world is cuter than a baby's laugh. I feel like I was just telling my boss that I was expecting my first baby, and now maternity leave is over. Our outfits are picked out, lunches/diaper bag are packed, baths/showers are done, and now it's time to go get my Kleenex ready....wish us luck.

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