My trip to Italy, Holland, and back again

There’s a well known poem in the world of families with special needs called “Welcome to Holland” by Emily Kingsly. It’s a poem about how being pregnant is like planning a wonderful vacation to Italy. You plan for months and months and can’t wait to get there. When your plane finally lands, you find out that you are not in Italy, you’re in Holland, and you can‘t leave. Everything is different that what you imagined and planned for. You are disappointed that your dream Italian vacation will never really be yours, but you come to realize that Holland is beautiful too. It’s very different from Italy, but it is beautiful.

The story of our family could be compared to this, except that we did land in Italy at first. A beautiful, healthy baby was born. I held him and it was everything I dreamed it would be. It was like I was finally sitting in that gondola taking in the amazing scenery and experience that I had been waiting for. Things quickly changed.

Suddenly the bottom of our gondala fell out right from underneath us! We had a diagnosis; conductive bilateral moderate hearing loss. The shock overcame me. I started sinking. I realized that if I didn’t start swimming, I would drown. I did what I could to swim to the shore, but I was exhausted, weak, and a very poor swimmer. Prayer, faith, friends and family pulled me to safety when I couldn’t do any more on my own.

Once I was at shore, I realized that I wasn’t in Italy anymore. I was in Holland. Everyone spoke a different language, and I didn’t know where to go or how to get there. It was a very lonely and overwhelming feeling. Some incredible people were placed in my family’s lives: special education teachers from Jordan School District and Utah School for the Deaf and Blind. I would say that they were our tour guides. We met some wonderful families who also unexpectedly found themselves in Holland, and we learned many life lessons from their experiences. Just as Emily Kingsly describes in her poem, we realized the beauty of Holland. Tulips. Windmills. Rembrants. We grew accustomed to the new territory, and we embraced it.

Although we did love Holland, everyone we knew was coming and going from Italy. They were all constantly talking about how incredible it was and showing us pictures. I couldn’t help but think from time to time about how I was supposed to be in Italy.

One day, we were told that our time in Holland might come to an end. Coleman passed his hearing test at the beginning of August. Over the next two weeks, he passed two more tests. Without any medical explanation, his hearing is now completely in the normal range for his right ear, and he only has a mild loss for high pitches on his left. He stopped wearing his hearing aids (hooray!!) and seems to be doing just fine without them. We packed our bags and took the next flight back to Italy with tears in our eyes and smiles on our faces!

Now we’re back in Italy, and Italy is amazing. Coleman is consistently saying a few words now, which puts a smile on my face every day. I can read to him and sing to him and know that he heard me. I can leave the room for a second without worrying that $2500 worth of hearing aids are being slobbered to death or dropped down the heat registers. So many things that I worried about are suddenly gone, and I love it. I’m taking in all of the incredible sights and sounds of this wonderful place.

I do miss Holland. I will be starting school next week so that I can one day work with kids with special needs. Maybe I can even be a tour guide there one day. This vacation has opened my eyes to a whole new world. I will be forever grateful that, by the Grace of God, I was able to experience both Holland and Italy. Holland is a place I will always love and never forget.