anyway....

When you're going to have a baby, its like planning a fabulous trip to...to Italy. You buy a bunch of guidebooks and make wonderful plans. The Coliseum. Michaelangelo's "David". The gondolas in Venice. You may learn some handy phrases in Italian. It's all very exciting. After many months of eager anticipation, the big day finally arrives. You pack your bags and off you go. Several hours later, the plane lands. The flight attendant comes 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 of my life I've dreamed of going to Italy."  BUT, there's been a change in the flight plan. They have landed the plane in Holland and you have no choice but to stay. The important thing is that they haven't taken you to a horrible, disgusting, filthy place full of pestilence, famine or disease. It's just a different place. So, now you must go out and buy new guidebooks. You must learn a whole new language. And you get to meet a whole new group of people you never would have met if you had gone to Italy. It is just a different place. It is sometimes slower-paced than Italy, sometimes less flashy. But after you have been there for a while and you catch your breath, you look around and begin to notice that Holland has windmills, Holland had the most beautiful tulips you have ever seen and Holland has Rembrandts. But everyone you know is busy coming and going from Italy and they are all bragging about what a wonderful time they are having there. And for the rest of your life, you will say, "Yes, that's where I was supposed to go. That is what I had planned." And the pain of that will never, never 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.

I thought it was beautiful. I hope others do too!

Valerie

PS---I am now going to hit "submit message" just once and hope thats all that happens! :)