I can't believe Isabella will be 4 months old tomorrow! Where does the time go? I haven't been very good about keeping people updated on caring bridge or this site for that matter. However, these last couple months there really isn't much to update after the whirlwind of surgeries are over. Thank goodness! Isabella is the biggest joy to our family! She has taught me more about life in these past few months than I have learned over the past 30 years. She has taught me how to love more than I ever thought possible, the virtue of patience, resiliency and most importantly I have learned who really is in charge - and it isn't me! While she is a lot of work, I wouldn't change it for anything. Our weeks are sometimes full of doctor appointments and ultrasounds and following up with specialists at times. We go to Denver every 3 months to the spina bifida clinic where she meets with the team of doctors that will follow her throughout her life. They consist of her urologist/gastroenterologist, orthopedic doctor, physical therapist, neurologist, and neurosurgeon. She has PT twice a week and OT once a week. We also have to do stretches and exercises on her hips, knees, and feet since she doesn't move or feel her legs from her knees down. She is currently wearing a brace on her right leg and pretty soon they will be addressing her left leg too. I also thought I would share a neat poem I found on a friend's blog.

"Welcome to Holland"

By Emily Perl Kingsley, 1987. All rights reserved.

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.