Looking for the poem about "trip to denmark"

[Judy from Boise]

or something like that ! I have read it a few times, it is a piece written by a Mom of a special child about how when you went to the hospital it was like you were all ready for a trip to a certain country......and instead were sent to a totally forgien land you wern't expecting.
I would like to share this one with my nursing students if anyone can post it for me. Actually i will take any and all pieces you would like future health care professionals to read !

 

[Judy from Boise]

found it !

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. 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... 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.

C

 

[AprilsZoo]

You can also find it and others like it at http://www.our-kids.org

 

[LvsTnk]

She had a son with Down Syndrome, Jason Kingsley. He wrote a book with another young man called "Count Us In, Growing Up With Down Syndrome".

That was given to me to read by another Mom the day my DS with Down Syndrome was born.

There is another one about how God chooses the patron saint for different Mom's. I will see if I can find it. After I go and get some kleenex LOL!

 

[SueM in MN]

Glad to see you found it. That website looks pretty good too. I haven't read the whole book (Count Me In), but I've read an excerpt from it and it is very good and thought provoking.

Here's another good website:
Exceptional Parent , a magazine that has been in existance for more than 25 years.