I got this from my LDS Autism Yahoo Group

"Welcome To Holland"

When you're going to have a baby, it's like you're planning a trip to Italy. You are all excited. You get a whole bunch of guidebooks and you learn a few phrases in Italian so you can get around. When it comes time, you pack your bags and head for the airport---for Italy.Only when you land, the stewardess says, "Welcome to Holland."You look at one another in disbelief and shock and say, "Holland? What are you talking about? I signed up for Italy!"But they explain there's been a change of plans and you've landed in Holland, where you must stay. "But I don't want to stay. I don't know anything about Holland!"

But you do stay. You go out and buy some new guidebooks. You learn some new phrases and you meet people you never knew existed. The important thing is that you are not in a filthy, plague-infested slum. You are simply in a different place than you had planned. It's slower paced than Italy, and less flashy, but after you've been there a while and you have a chance to catch your breath, you begin to discover that Holland has windmills, it even has tulips.

Holland is beautiful.But everyone you know is busy coming and going from Italy. They are all bragging about what a good time they had there. For the rest of your life you will say, "Yes, that's where I was going. That is what I had planned."The pain of that will never, ever go away.You have to accept that pain because the loss of that dream, the loss of that plan is a very, very significant loss.

But if you spend your life mourning the fact that you didn't get to Italy, you will never be free to enjoy the very special, the very lovely things about Holland.