One Line

There is something empty about being done and I can hardly bare it. How I wanted to see two lines on those sticks, but after three tests when only one line appeared my hopes and dreams of twin girls or one girl or twin boys or one boy died and I threw them away in the trash. My first thought was, “Well, I’ll get even. I’ll take my body back to myself. I’ll lose twenty pounds, I’ll run miles and miles and it will all be about me. If no other person needs to share my body then I’ll take it back and it will be all mine, all mine. . . .” But even that didn’t make me feel any better.
I thought about the boxes of baby clothes calling from the closet—the little lima bean one that each of the boys wore home from the hospital, and the white one that their little bellies filled up--and I was so sad. The refrigerator jeered at me. My cousin Jessica’s baby laying on her hands, so small and actually smiling at my loss and there she was with her gold earrings and smug smile. She was the one who endured 2 hours of stress when her baby was born and so she and her husband decided they were done. They were finished with having children because it was just too scary, too frightening. They were lucky to have three healthy children. They didn’t want any more. But God wanted them to have more. He was begging them to give up something—to try again and so in the temple he told them that he had someone to share with them. He had someone that he had saved for their family and wouldn’t they take him? They agreed and got pregnant the next hour probably and had their baby.

But what about me? What about my desire to take care of a little spirit? Why wasn’t I called to take care of one more? Why didn’t God choose our family? Am I so evil that sometimes I yell at my kids? Sometimes I don’t listen to them? Sometimes I am not the mother I should be? But sometimes I read to them and sometimes I take them to the park and on walks and make edible play-dough and sometimes I pray with them and I love them with all of my heart. My heart yearns to be a mother, yearns to nurse another baby, to look down at their sweet face and see all the potential for greatness, purity, and love. I want that.

So I prayed and I begged Heavenly Father to help me understand and to help me help my kids to understand. They want a baby. They want to hoist a little guy on their hip and bring him to me when he is crying. They want to dress him and play with him and laugh with him. They want to feed him and show me how strong they are when they can finally pick him up with his head flailing around. They wanted it too.

In my prayer, the unutterable words—the words that no one should ever say—dropped from my lips, “It isn’t fair.” As soon as I said those heavy, misguided and selfish words the Spirit, which probably should have given up on me at that moment, stayed and began to roll a movie before my eyes.

I saw my husband who is the most gentle, supportive, smiling, wonderful, sacred man in the world. I saw him come and sit and down and cry with me on the toilet. I saw him cleaning up after dinner and leading our family scripture story. I saw him bringing me flowers and building a play house for the kids. I saw my children playing together, able to run and jump and climb trees and whip whips and make sound effects that sound like airplanes and write poetry about little moments. I saw my home free from a dirt floor with cold air that blows out of slits in the walls and hot air that comes the same way. I saw my roof that held out the rain at that very moment. I thought of my bed up off the floor with clean, warm blankets. I thought of the flies that could be all around my face. I thought of the distance I could be from the church, not knowing of the true gospel. I though of being somewhere with death all around me, with shacks for roofs and undrinkable water. And then I knew that it wasn’t fair. Of course it wasn’t fair. If I wanted FAIR He could give me fair, but what he has given me instead is so unfair and so beautiful and so blessed.

I still don’t know why I won’t have the experience again of having another life within me. But, I do know that God knows. I do know that He has already sent peace like a dove to Coleman (on the very night I prayed for it)-- and to me. The Holy Ghost let us catch of glimpse of peace and we are believing in our Father’s goodness. I do know that God heard me and for some reason he has a different plan for my life than I did. And amazingly enough, that is always the best plan of all.

Love, Steffani