Splendid Mayhem: Mourning The Loss Of A Child

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'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.

Tuesday, May 29, 2007

Mourning The Loss Of A Child

Many of you already know this- and, I'm not dealing well with it. I HATE the fact that I may not beable to "hold" another baby in my tummy, to feel the tiny flutters of little body parts tickling my insides, to go through labor, to nurse another baby, to watch a baby grow into a child.... My body sucks...... Tonight, I cry b/c there may never be a 3rd baby Duncan. I may never be a mom to a daughter, I may never have 3 sons. I'm so THANKFUL for the 2 beautiful, wonderful blessings God has given me. But, yet- I mourn for a child I may never have. I'm throwing myself a full blown pity party, I ask for your prayers- to help me deal with this. This is God's will. I have to remind myself that if it's meant for Adam & I to have 3 children, we will. God will make sure of it; some how, some way. That still doesn't make this emptiness go away. The hurt doesn't stop. We will re-evaluate the "baby" situation again next year and see what "I" look like. If we are able to get pregnant again, I'll be doomed for bedrest - again. But, thats ok. If weeks and weeks of bedrest mean we have another baby, then- by gosh-- I'll lay on my hiney for a very long time! Bedrest also means my mom & Dave have to be ready! And, Adam of course!! So, please just say a prayer for us. Adam has taken this pretty hard to.