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, February 5, 2012

Well, this past week has been interesting to say the least. On Wedensday, Luke's daycare called us to say that he had a 102 temp and that he had to go home. I was on my way home to go run around the neighborhood so that worked out. I took the booger to the Quickcare place close to our house. He had pneumonia and we went to the ER. LUCKILY his O2 levels were good, so we were sent home with a satchel full of meds with the promise that we would see the doc in the morning. Deal! So we went and he was happy, if not a bit wheezy/coughy. Yes, I just made up a word. Deal with it. The clinic had two pulse/oxygen monitors, one was broken and the other was all over the place. The doc was a wuss and kept us waiting for over an hour trying to figure out if she was going to send us to the hospital. The nurses were fighting for us not to go since Luke was happy and hyper. She sent us home finally and we had to come back the next day. That evening, Melissa asked me to rub her back so she could pop it. It seems to be getting tighter as she gets close to her due date. So she cracks the ever living crap out it and is satisfied. Sometime that night she whacks me in the arm to wake me up. Her back is killing her and she goes to the ER. I stay at home so Luke can sleep. She calls me 2 hours later to come get her, they are giving her a shot and Claire is fine. So that works out. The next morning, Melissa can barely move because of her back but she has to take Luke to the doc. She again fights with the doc to send us home and wins. Both times she told the doc that we can go home peacefully, or the doc can try to send us to the hospital and have a major scene on her hands. In case you didn't know, my wife is part Honey Badger, just saying. Any-hoo, so that was our week. And I'm the only two legged person in my house that hasn't gone to the ER! Hell, even the dogs went to the vet for shots, so there you go. If this post is a bit choppy, it's because I typed it out on our iPad. Not too bad either!

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