We received this today in our adoption class. I thought it was very touching and wanted to share. There are times when I feel people think that adoption erases the pain we have associated with our infertility. It is a difficult thing to explain but I don't feel like the two are connected. We will always feel a loss associated with our inability to conceive. This hurt does not diminish the importance we place on our adoption journey. It is a choice we made despite our infertility not because of it. This process is about loss, love, hope, challenge, joy and endurance.

Welcome To Holland
by
Emily P. Kingsley

When your going to have a baby, it's like planning a fabulous vacation trip to Italy. You buy a bunch of guidebooks and make your wonderful plans. The coliseum, The Michelangelo's 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, 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 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.

Soooooo, I never know how to start these things. I really don't think anyone reads my posts anyways. The end of the year is quickly approaching and what a year it has been. Lots of smiles, a few tears and some great memories. I love the holidays and every year hold on to them far too long by leaving our tree up until February. That is the great thing about having a fake tree. I know that none of this makes any sense but again the only people that read this already know we are crazy so why change pace.

Seriously, this year has been one for the record books. I don't know how to sum it up; therefore, I will leave it at that. We will enter 2009 with a new determination. Both of us are continuing our education. I hope to get into a real university, finally. We hope to return to SD in April. But, the best news of all, again I don't think anyone reads this so essentially I am talking to myself, we are going to adopt. Yep not just plan on it but actually do it. The paperwork has begun and we picked an agency, and our home study agency. Now all we have to do is fill out paperwork, no small feat, get accepted and wait. Then there is more waiting, a bit more and then, yep more waiting and then, WE GET TO GO GET OUR BABY. Finally light at the end of the tunnel. Well off to bed with a smile on my face and a new bounce in my step.

To a fabulously challenging year; may it bring us the wisdom we need to continue through our journey with smiles and lots and lots of laughter. Did I mention I am talking to myself :).

Au revoir mes amis