The Wood Between the Worlds

October 20, 2012
A sublime Saturday morning found us at Central Park with the rest of residents of the borough of Manhattan.  There were people everywhere...biking, jogging, working out with personal trainers, doing yoga with a group of cohorts, kids playing soccer, tourists riding in pedi-cabs.  Central Park is clearly the place to be on Saturday.  Riding bikes in Central Park is one of my sister and her husband's favorite things to do on their day off, and it is a really great way to see ALL of Central Park and do a lot of people watching at the same time!  So Brent and I rented bicycles and joined the citizens of Manhattan on their favorite Saturday past time.

There are many things you have to know about riding bikes in New York City.  It is a great way to get around.  You CANNOT ride on the sidewalks, unless you want to get chewed out by very verbal elderly women.  When riding through Central Park, you ignore the pedestrian stop lights or you will get plowed over by the serious roadies.  The only exceptions to that rule would be if an actual pedestrian is waiting to cross, or if a police officer is nearby...although I'm told they don't often pay attention to the minor infractions to the law.  The New York way of life is very different than the west coast, indeed, as I have been told by many people.

What a beautiful autumn Saturday!



        

October, 19 2012
With rain in the forecast, we decided that Friday would be our museum day.  We had 4 museums on our agenda to see in New York City: The Guggenheim, The Metropolitan Museum of Art (The Met), The Modern Museum of Art (MOMA), and the Nation Museum of Natural History.  These four museums were included with our City Pass, which we purchased for $89 each, and also included the Statue of Liberty/Ellis Island, and the Empire State Building Observatory.  Totally worth it!

It was a little hard to get up as early as we wanted to Friday morning because it was still 3 hours earlier than our time zone, and we were still pretty tired from our red eye flight...so we got a little later start to the day than we wanted...but I was EXTREMELY excited when we finally made it to the Guggenheim!  The Guggenheim Museum has been very first on my list ever since I was a senior in high school and checked out a book of the works at the Guggenheim from the library.  I've wanted to go there since I was 18, and finally getting there felt like Disneyland used to feel like to me when I was a kid.

*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.                  

October 17-18
My very kind sister
dropped Brent and Milo and I at the Portland airport at 8:15 pm, and drove back to our suburban home with our three older kids.  Brent and I were scheduled to catch the red eye flight to New York City.  VERY EXCITING!  Brent and I had planned to take a trip together, sans children, for our 10th anniversary.  But because of a dear baby and a funeral it didn't happen that 10th year.  "Never fear," Brent said.  "The only reason the 10th anniversary is such a milestone is because we have 10 fingers.  If we had 11 fingers, the 11th anniversary would be the big milestone."  So we laughed it off and decided to take a trip for our 11th Anniversary.  Somewhere cool, like Europe or Hawaii.  But with our 11th Anniversary came another baby.  And with our 12th came a missionary homecoming for Brent's brother that we felt we should attend.  Finally for our lucky 13th anniversary + 2 months, we had a trip planned and booked.  The old cliche "better late than never" comes to mind.  My younger sister and her husband have been living in New York City for years, and had offered to let us come and crash at their place.  We finally decided to take them up on the offer, since they might be leaving for graduate school within the next year.  I sat at the computer one day, on the Jet Blue Airlines website, like a frightened child on the high diving board trying to get the courage to jump off.  I quickly clicked the send button to buy the tickets before I could think too long or too hard about leaving my kids (especially 2 year old Ollie).  So on October 17th, we were at the airport with only our baggage and our 3 month old baby, ready to fly east through the night on an adventure.

We arrived at the JFK airport at 5:30 am, New York Time...which is 3 hours before Pacific Time, so it was the middle of the night for us.  Brent didn't sleep at all.  I dozed in and out of sleep.  Milo slept easily on my lap the whole way on top of the boppy pillow and wrapped in a swaddle wrap.  The flight was completely booked and we didn't buy a seat for Milo, but it turned out better to have him sleep on the boppy pillow on my lap so I could keep him from crying the whole way.  Everyone on the flight thanked me later, when we arrived and Milo never made sound.  Did I mention that it was the best idea EVER to bring the boppy pillow?  Because it was.  Even though it is quite large.  I stuffed it down into a fabric tote and shoved it under the stroller when we were en route to and from the airport.  Otherwise, it stayed at my sister's apartment.

We had planned to ride the subway all the way from the airport on the far end of Queens, to Northern Manhattan, Harlem, where my sister lives.  She had warned us that we might want to consider taking a taxi to her place, but our frugality won out and we were all set to take the subway- just jump in to New York City, over our heads, right from the start...our first time on the NYC subway WITH a baby and a stroller AND all of our luggage.  My sister laughed at us, and told us she would come pick us up with her car-- even though she had never driven all the way out there and was a little nervous to do so.  She got us back to her place just in time for her husband to take the car to go to work (north of NYC), and to get there on time for an important business meeting.  Whew!

After we got to her place, we were hoping to drop off our luggage and get right back out there to start seeing stuff...but when we saw our bed, our bodies told us that we had jet lag and needed to take a nap. So we did.  For four hours!

We left Heather's apartment through the back alley way, since we had our stroller and there is a ramp back there.  As soon as we walked out the back door, I was instantaneously amazed!  I looked up at the buildings and realized "WE ARE IN NEW YORK CITY!"  I took this picture: