It's like this.....When you are 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, David, The Gondolas in Venice. You may learn some handy phrases in Italian. It's all very exciting. after months of anticipation the 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?! I signed up for Italy! I'm supposed to be in Italy, all my life I have dreamed of going to Italy!" But there has 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 out and buy new guidebooks. And you must learn a whole new language. You will meet a whole new group of people you otherwise would have never met.

It's just a different place, it's a slower pace than Italy, but once you have been there awhile, you catch your breath, look around and begin to notice that Holland has windmills, tulips, and even Rembrandt. But everyone you know is coming and going from Italy, they are bragging about what a wonderful time they have 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 planned."

The pain of that will never ever go away, because the loss of that dream is a 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 that very special place........and very lovely things about

........Holland.