Welcome to Holland

When thinking about a NICU story, it always starts with a new birth like springtime – yet the rest of the journey doesn't always look like the flower you waited for to bloom.

Have you read the welcome to Holland story?

"When you're going to have a baby, it's like planning a fabulous vacation trip – to Italy. You buy a bunch of guidebooks and make wonderful plans. The Colosseum. The Michelangelo David, the gondolas in Venice. You may learn some handy phrases in Italian. It's all very exciting. After months of eager and anticipation, the day finally arrives. You pack your bag off you go. Several hours later, the plane lands.

The steward 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 most 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 and buy new guidebook. 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 pace than Italy. But after you've been there for a while and 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 wonderful 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 go away...because the loss of that dream is a 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.

Author unknown

We're 5 years out of our NICU journey, and can honestly tell you, so much new growth comes from going to 'Holland'. Look for the tulips.