The Wood Between the Worlds

In the spirit of catching up:

We got back from New York just a few short days before Halloween.  I had a plan to have all the Halloween costumes ready before we left for our trip...or at least have all the materials assembled so that I could quickly make them.  But since I have never been very good at juggling a billion things like packing, grocery shopping, cleaning, getting house ready for sitters, AND making costumes...you can guess that the least important thing didn't happen.  So I didn't get around to making the little boys' costumes and the adults' costumes (the adults were going to be trees and the little guys were going to be owls...riding on the trees).  But the big boys' costumes came together nicely, in a fast and furious kind of way.  Finished just about 10 minutes before their school costume carnival!  Whew!

But first:
10/25/12 - The day after we got back from NY and saw our precious children again!

*I started this blog post weeks ago, but never had time to finish it...and wasn't really sure I was going to until today.  I had been having the desire to lighten up the blog a little, as it's been heavy with my thoughts lately, and I was worried that my friends and family have not been enjoying that.  But today as I was trying so hard to get the computer to upload my pictures from day 2 of our New York trip...they just wouldn't upload...they still have not (something is seriously wrong with our internet).  So I took that as my nudge to finish this post instead.  I know it is what I needed to write today.  

NEWSFLASH: I have changed positions since I wrote this blog entry, two years ago: {i need a girl}.
 
Immediately after we lost Elsa, I knew we were going to have another girl.  I pictured in my mind exactly how beautiful our story would be in the end...mother looses daughter, mother grieves honorably, mother puts all her trust in God, and finally mother gives birth to another healthy, living daughter.  Perfect.  Everyone in the land rejoices.  And they live happily ever after.

Perfect, in my eyes...but as we soon come to learn, that is NOT how the Lord's timetable for our lives will proceed.  And I knew it even before Elsa was gone, that we were having another boy.  I prayed, I pleaded, and I bargained for another girl first.  I promised we WOULD have another baby boy if He wanted us to, if He would send another girl first.  I THOUGHT it was what I NEEDED to help me heal.

Before we were pregnant with Oliver, I had this perfect, peaceful feeling that God was sending us a boy and that he was going to be wonderful.  We were going to love him so much, and he would be everything that we needed.  As the pregnancy commenced and proceeded, I pushed away those feelings and convince myself that of course God would send us another girl. 

 It took a while after we had Oliver to be happy with him.  I'll be honest there, but once I did wonderful love entered into my life.  And then I thought "if I start praying now, surely my next baby will be a girl."  So I would pray and ask for a girl every morning and every night.  And then I would ask if He was going to send me a girl.  I always get the answer "yes".  But then I would ask if my next baby would be a girl {because heavens knows I am impatient and have already waited through two pregnancies for a girl when I thought I was already getting one...I can't wait anymore!}.  But my answer always felt like boy next, boy next.  I had a hard time accepting that and would push that feeling away and only dwell on the good feeling I got when I prayed about  a girl.  {Enter Milo, whom we adore.  It only took one instant for me to be happy with him-it was the instant I caught him in the birth tub.} 

Truly I have wearied the Lord with all of my prayers on this subject.  I had heard of other women praying for the gender they wanted, and then getting it...and I thought if it worked for them, it should work for me.  But the thing I didn't get was that the Lord knows each of us, sees the big picture and knows exactly what we need.  But everywhere I look, the spirit is teaching me to "ask, and ye shall receive."  And I believe that with all of my heart.  So I continue to pray.  I had this experience a couple of months ago where I was asking the Lord if I was going to have a girl, or if we could expect to have all boys...when suddenly I received a different answer than before.  The spirit told me that we would have all boys until we get Elsa back.  I fought that answer in my heart.  NO!  How could that be!  But then something changed within me: after only a few moments, I accepted that answer.  Ok.  We will have another baby and it will be another boy...if that's what we need to do, that's what we'll do.  And we will be happy.  For quite a few years I have felt a fraction of what Mary, the mother of Jesus must have felt: I have willingly become a vessel for the children God wants me to have, no matter the cost to my heart.  "Be it unto me, according to thy will."

As soon as I accepted that answer, almost immediately I felt a burning in my chest that we would have another girl, and that previous answer was just a test to see if I could let go of my will and trust the Lord.  Wow!  So now I feel like I'm setting myself up for a win-win situation on my next baby because if I get a girl, great!  But if I get another boy, I know with all of my being that it will be the Lord's will and we WILL love it.  Before I went to Oliver's ultrasound, I remember telling someone the line from Elder Wirthin's talk a few years back "come what may, and love it."  I said it, but I had no idea that I didn't really mean it.  But now I mean it.  I really do.

Just about a few weeks after this experience we watched general conference.  There were several amazing talks that caught my attention, which I already wrote about...but one talk I didn't write about was President Henry B. Eyring's "Where is the Pavilion".  This talk was like a follow up message from the Lord to me, about the above experience...reinforcing that yes, I had created a pavilion between the Lord and I by fighting His answers previously.  But by accepting them, I was removing the pavilion giving me direct access to God.  President Eyring's daughter in law removed the pavilion by finally giving up her desire to have another baby, and leaving it in the Lord's hands.  I removed the pavilion by accepting, truly accepting the baby that God needs us to have.

Then, if that weren't enough, last Sunday a friend on Facebook posted a link to a blog by CJane (which I have never read before) about her experience with infertility.  It was amazing how it corresponded with the experience that I have had.  Even though I have never had fertility issues, I could relate to exactly what she was saying.  It's like I've had girl fertility and girl loss problems.  I don't mean to mock anyone who has gone through fertility problems, because I only gained a glimpse of what that must be like when Elsa died and I had to wait another frustrating year without a baby.  But when CJane shared that although she experienced 5 years of infertility, she always knew she would conceive a baby, AND before she conceived she was finally able to be happy and to accept her life.  Wow.  I GET that.

Ok, one more thought...I'm sorry if this post is perfectly boring.  It is helping me so much to get all my thoughts out.  Today I stayed home from church with two sick babies.  I wanted to review last month's conference talks during church time, but my toddler just wouldn't have that!  He was grouching at me for doing anything that didn't include paying attention to him.  So we decided to pick out a living scriptures dvd to watch together instead...cuddled on the couch.  That was acceptable to him.  First we watched The Lord's Prayer, and the spirit cemented my earlier thought in this post about prayer...that you can never pray too much for something you are asking the Lord for.  I won't give up until I die.  But the second movie we watched was I think The Signs of the Times, and it was about the last days of the Savior before His sacrifice.

I saw that story in a new way today:
The Jewish people were in bondage to the overbearing Roman Empire.  They were hoping for a miracle, a Messiah to deliver them.  Even the apostles just a few days before the crucifixion were wondering when He was going to pronounce himself King, and deliver them from the Romans.  And truly that was what they needed!  Truly that was not a wrong thing for them to desire.  They believed that He was the Son of God, and the Messiah, and that He could perform miracles.  Then the next thing they knew, He allowed Himself to be taken and crucified.  It must have felt like a punch in the gut to them.  But they could not see the whole picture.  They could not see that IF He threw down the Romans and was not crucified, all mankind would be lost forever.  They could not see what a HUGE frustration to the plan of salvation it would have been, if He had given them the temporal deliverance from their earthly bondage.
Likewise, I know that when my prayers were not answered like I thought they were going to be, and when I did not receive the good things that I so greatly desired and prayed so hard for...I know there is a bigger picture.  I MUCH bigger picture, that I cannot fully see.  I know that God has a great purpose for me, that I cannot always see.  But like the original Apostles, I still believe in Him.  I still know He loves me.  And little by little that bigger picture is being revealed.  But it probably will remain somewhat of a mystery to me until after I die.  And that's ok.

The question may come to anyone who reads this (as it has come to my mind, and also to my husband's) of why I want a daughter so badly.  Why do I put myself through this?  Why do I go to all the trouble to pray and think all of this through?  Why go to all of the trouble to write this all out?  And the answer is simple:  I have ALWAYS felt I was going to have a daughter.  Always.  Sometimes I ask myself the question: was Elsa that daughter I always felt?  But the spirit tells me, there is another.  "Faith in the Lord includes faith in His timing." -Elder Neil A. Maxwell 

Yet, I know we will have one AMAZING life if we have all boys.  Because if we do, I know the Lord's plan is SO MUCH bigger than mine.  So although I would greatly like another girl, I do NOT need another girl.                  

8/9/12

A couple of months back, Oliver turned 2!  And I'm finally going to try to get caught up.

I've been trying to get more practice with my dslr camera...practice, practice, practice!  I think I've finally figured out how to adjust the aperture and iso.  Next I need to experiment with shutter speeds.  But what a great time to be able to experiment with a new camera ... a time with a new baby!

The first two sets of pictures are not taken with the dslr:

Before I can write Milo's birth story, or even explain the meaning of his name...I feel like there is a lot more of the story which needs to be recorded.  I had a lot more processing to do once again.  I struggle in knowing how much of it I should make public...I do not want anyone to misinterpret my story.  But because I have often felt so alone on my path, I feel like I should share some of the struggles and triumphs I've had...in hopes that maybe it will help at least one other person out there.

After loosing Elsa, part of the reassurance I felt from the Lord was that I would be able to have another daughter.  I felt for sure He would give me that daughter right away, so I was surprised when my next baby was Ollie.  It took me a long time to get over the fact that he wasn't a girl, which is such a conflicting emotion to have when you're about to have a miraculous new baby.  Actually, it took me until Ollie was about 9 months old to stop feeling so sad that he wasn't another girl.  But then a miraculous thing happened...I grew to love Oliver SO much that I knew I would never want a girl instead of him.  People told me that would happen, but I didn't believe them.  Life was so unfair, and I was cheated.  As much as I tried not to feel that way, I did.  But Ollie wiggled his cute little smile and personality into my heart, and then I realized it was ok.  More than ok.  Time with him has gone so quickly, and he has grown up to be a little boy before I could even blink.


The next event occurred last September, when I had a dream...several dreams actually.  My first dream was so real and vivid that when I woke up, it lingered.  I couldn't stop thinking about it and the sweet, peaceful feeling accompanied the dream.  The dream took place at my midwives' office (the birth center).  I was there for a routine prenatal exam and when I was giving a urine sample, I felt a strong urge to push...so I did.  After the easiest labor ever...I caught a long, slender baby all by myself in the bathroom.  When the baby came out, I was amazed...but I remembered to check to see which gender the baby was...and it was a girl!  I was lifted up in sublime rapture...and that was the feeling that lingered with me throughout the rest of the day (and the feeling still continues).  In the space of the next two weeks I had several more dreams about having a girl.  I started to pray about it, and felt like maybe we should considered having another baby sooner than we thought we were going to.  Then at October General Conference, Brent had an impression that he needed to get prepared to raise a daughter.  We thought for sure we were going to have a baby girl, and shortly thereafter found out we were pregnant.  


I spent the first half of my pregnancy feeling pretty sure that God was finally going to send us another daughter.  Then before my ultrasound, I had a distinct impression that my children were not for me.  They were not my possessions to dress up and parade around.  Instead they are the children that God needs me to raise.  He has a calling for me, and it is to take care of the spirits that He needs to send to me right now.  And that He loves me very much, even if He does not answer my prayers how or when I want Him to.  I started to have the feeling that our baby might not be a girl...and realized that I needed to prepare myself for the possibility that we might have another boy.  I knew from my experience with Oliver that another boy could be and would be amazing...but I didn't want to spend the rest of my pregnancy disappointed like I did with Oliver's pregnancy, so we decided not to find out the gender.  


When we went to have the ultrasound, all I had to do was look at my baby's face and I knew it was a boy.  So I spent the rest of my pregnancy 90% sure that the baby was a boy.  However, I still couldn't shake the profound dream that I had before I got pregnant...so I couldn't 100% convince myself it was a boy.  Most of the time I was completely fine with the baby being another boy.  But I had my moments of wondering why God would do this to me and how the circumstances of my life could be so unfair (especially compared to other's around me who had a baby girl who didn't die).  


There was a time where I searched for someone who I could relate with...someone who would understand what I was going through.  I have several friends who only have boys, who can understand the disappointment in not having a girl; and I have several friends who have lost a baby.  But I do not know ANYONE who has all of one gender and the baby they lost was the opposite gender.  I was feeling so alone.  It just seemed like God did not do that to anyone, because it was too much!  I came to the realization that whichever gender my baby was going to be, it was going to be difficult sometimes...because I lost my baby girl, and I'm going to be feeling that for the rest of my life.  I was able to then realize that I have two separate issues going on...I lost a baby, AND I really want a girl.  It was in a moment of inspiration that I remembered one of my roommates from collage.  Her parent's story was influential.  They were a young couple, living in Finland when they had their first baby...a boy.  Next they had a girl (my roommate), and their 2 year old son died of cancer.  This event would shape the rest of their lives.  When they met the missionaries from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (the Mormon church) (my church), they normally would not have been interested in the church.  But they were told that through the ordinances administered in the church, families are sealed together forever.  They could have the chance to raise their precious son again...and they were converted.  My roommate's father became a cancer researcher at a prominent Ivy League University in the United States.  They went on to have 3 more daughters (4 including my roommate) before they finally had another son.  I can imagine how they must have yearned for another son.  Anyway, it is a blessing to have known this particular roommate...because for one thing, she was an amazing friend and very interesting to get to know her and her family's story...but I never could have guessed that so many years later, her families story would come to my mind and help me know that I am not the only one this has happened to.  


Still there were (and still will be, I'm sure) days where I wish I could have my daughter and be done having kids.  More and more of my friends are saying they are done having kids...many of them have two boys and one girl.  There are days where I am so tired and can't possibly imagine adding any more kids to the mix, although I still feel that daughter is coming...but then I wake up the next morning and everything is better, and I realized that those crazy days are fewer and farther between.  But on one of those particularly tumultuous day, I was searching for an answer, and on a whim decided to type my question into google.  It was for sure an answer to my prayer that the google search engine came back with this article by Elder Richard G. Scott (who seems to be having lots of articles I can relate to lately). It is all about how we need to trust in the Lord through our adversities, and trust that they will be for our good.  That was a turning point for me, in which I decided that I was going to be happy with whatever gender the Lord sends to us.  That I can trust in Him that there is a great purpose for my willingness and ability to be pregnant and grow bodies for His spirit children (whether they use them now or later)...and there is also a great purpose in the tests and trials that I have had, will continue to have, and in which I have already seen great blessings as a result of in this life.


So it came to very little surprise to me when this baby came out, and he was a boy!  But the one thing that has changed during this pregnancy is my perspective and my desire to do the Lord's will...and my attitude that I can choose to be happy with what I have been given.  And for certain, my soul has been filled with complete gratitude and joy.  And I know I will be ok...even if I never end up with another girl in this life (although I would still really like one!).  I know I could be a really great mama to girls or boys...so I'm just going to go ahead and trust that the Lord knows how best to utilize my life.  But I'm still going to allow myself to grieve for my daughter whenever I feel I need to...because grief is a result of love.  And I am definitely filled with love.                

I haven't blogged in so long...wow!  I've been bad!  Really, really bad!  Just when I was *almost* caught up too...I've let it all slip again.  Part of my problem is that Brent and I have an obsession with cameras.  We seem to be collecting them.  We now have 4 cameras!!!  {How did that happen?!?}  So downloading the pictures off of all those cameras takes SO much time, that I just don't want to do it.  Urgh.  One of the cameras is from my new ipod touch that I got for Christmas...the pictures aren't that great, but it's so small that it fits in my pocket, and I take it everywhere.  So thus, it captures a lot of daily things that I normally don't capture.  So I'm going back through the year to post the {very} best of, hopefully it won't be boring!

12/25/11 - a really great video of Ollie and I on Christmas Day...my kids request this little clip over and over so we've watched it a lot, and we always laugh!  Hopefully the grandparents will enjoy it!





 3/1/12 - Ollie has his first major owie.  :(  Sad!  Sad!  I was pulling a big, heavy homemade pizza on a pizza stone out of the oven and he ran up and grabbed the wire rack I was taking the pizza from.  I was shocked because he has shown in the past that he knows "hot" and doesn't touch it.  I'm guessing that he forgot because he was so hungry!  Poor boy!