Later that day, I read Emily Perl Kingsley’s essay “Welcome To Holland“ about learning you will be a parent of a special needs child. She talks about how having a baby is like preparing a trip to Italy. You read all the guidebooks, you learn Italian, and plan to see all of these amazing Italian landmarks. But then you get off the plane and realize you’re in Holland. And while you were supposed to go to Italy, all your friends have gone to Italy, and you had dreamed of Italy your entire life, now you’re in Holland and it’s where you must stay. But after the initial confusion and fear goes away, you start to notice that, while Holland is slower-paced and less flashy than Italy, it has all of these lovely, wonderful things about it. Losing that dream of never going to Italy will always be painful, but if you dwell on that forever, you’ll miss out on all of the wonderful, special things about Holland. I cried reading it — as usual — but it marked a turning point for me. For the first time, I started to realize that this wasn’t the end of the world. This wasn’t what I had planned, and never in a million years did I think that I would ever be the parent of a special needs child. And while everything will be different now, that doesn’t have to be a bad thing. I was still scared, but I was ready to start moving past the fear and sadness and confusion.
She now awaits the birth of her beautiful baby boy.
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Most of the headlines about the Italian cruise ship disaster was about the Captain fleeing before everyone was safe.
But did you hear the story of the numerous Filipino crew members and staff who risked their lives to help the passengers get off the stricken liner?.
A French passenger quoted in media reports recalled how the people who helped them “were cooks and stewardesses, all Filipinos. They roped themselves together to help us get down to the lifeboats.”
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