Welcome to Holland: Maddock’s 7th birthday

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.

Wednesday, March 23, 2011

Maddock’s 7th birthday

What? I can’t believe he is 7 already. where did the time go? this sweet child just keeps getting sweeter as he gets older. he was my only baby actually born on time. He was a huge sigh of relief after everything we went through with mitch. it was a very exciting time in our lives and we were so excited to be having another boy. we wanted mitch to have a brother so bad. I had a lot of time to prepare for his arrival because I was on strict bed rest almost the entire pregnancy so we knew exactly what we were going to name him, we knew right after we found out he was a boy. we had to change it a little bit but that ended up being the best thing…. I really wanted a family name anyways. after we found out we were having to change it, my dad was thumbing through one of our many family history books, Samuel claridge to be exact, and he found the name maddock. (It was going to be maddox) he called me up and yelled “it’s a sign!” go ahead and do it! we ended up liking it a million times better anyways and bonus…. it was a family name! the john and Rebecca (maddock) Hughes family…. thank you to you! When I was to the point of no longer needing bed rest… we went straight to the temple and sealed our little family together for eternity. So we were sealed on the 12th of March and maddock layton morton was born on the 15th of march. I couldn’t wait to go see him so I went as soon as I woke up and I guess it was a little too soon because I got really nauseous and threw up in the nursery. they really give you some good stuff when you have a c-section! he had fluid on his lungs when he was born so he had to be under the oxygen tent for a while and we were at timp hospital instead of uvrmc so they had no idea what our history was with mitch, the nurses tiptoed around the oxygen thing thinking it would scare me. ha! it would take a lot more than a little oxygen to scare me! it was so nice to be able to take madd home a few days later. we were absolutely thrilled.

madd is so fun to be around, he is a very thoughtful boy and he is genuinely sweet. he loves playing soccer, baseball and riding his motorcycle, which makes dad happy. he also loves swimming and always asks if he can go to san Diego to go swimming. he loves his family. he always is talking about grandma and grandpa and grandma great and all his cousins. It’s a real treat for him to have cousins that live so close, when he doesn’t see shonnie for a while, he asks to write her a letter or wants to drop in to see her. how did I get so lucky? I feel very blessed to have this sweet boy in our family. he is very much loved. it is an absolute dream come true to have a child that is sincerely concerned for other people. I could never ask for more. I love you so much madd! you are so special.

we had a very last minute party… we were sick and not up to it, but madd started making a list the night before so we figured we better. he ended up having a great time.