Our Trip to Holland

Some of my blogging friends posted their trips to Holland and I thought I'd do the same. We all come from different walks of life and most of it isn't what we had expected. My journey has made me stronger and I know yours has too. My friend said it best: "We have the strength to conquer this challenge and, if nothing else, we have each other to lean on. Thanks for supporting me on this adventure." Ditto. Thank you for enjoying the adventure with me.

Welcome to Holland
by Emily Perl Kingsley

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.

Welcome to My Holland

Lainey was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes February 2007.

Our lives changed dramatically.

Home from the hospital March 2007.

1st insulin pump June 2007.

Libby's encephalocele removed August 2007.

Surgery #2-shunt placement September 2007.

Surgery #3-open heart surgery November 2007.

Surgery #4-pacemaker placement November 2007 (one week after surgery #3).

Surgery #5-tubes in ears November 2008.

Surgery #6-shunt revision August 2009.

Holland is a different place, but I've stopped to smell the tulips, see the windmills, and admire the Rembrandts.

And they are beautiful.