Fertile Mertile

I love my boys. I really do. I love their curiosity for all things nerdy and their love of competition. I love their pre-pubescent awkward stage and their discovery of the opposite sex beyond their mom and sisters. I love when their voices change and they sound like they have a cold for 6 months.  Then there are the foot pain inducing legos strewn about the house, the loud shooting games, Nerf bullets in every nook and cranny and the total deafness that overcomes them when they are staring at an electronic device. I haven't even mentioned the smells and the intentional in your face farting.  I have fought against and embraced it all.  I did try to have more girls.  I really did.

We had four kids.  Girl. Boy. Girl. Boy.  We were rockstars at the whole making babies thing, and the different genders thing, and we decided to push our luck.  I wanted another girl because I was selfish and arrogant and knew I could do it.  My husband was in his medical residency, we were far from family and in the eyes of the world, our four kids were more than enough.  But we have never cared what the world or anyone else thought about desire for a big family.  It was between us and God.

I was delighted to find myself pregnant with number 5 and was excited for our Y2K baby.  But, alas, there was no baby.  After an ultrasound revealed a blighted ovum (the embryo never really formed), and one outpatient surgery, I was not pregnant.  I was okay.  Really I was. I had never had a miscarriage and it was my turn.  Now I could count myself with the thousands of women this has happened to. I chalked it up to statistics and moved on. And in true fertile fashion, I was pregnant again in no time.

This was it.  The 5th baby was finally on it's way.  After a few weeks an ultrasound revealed little arms and legs and toes.  We told the kids and excitement abounded.  But, alas, there was no baby. Again.  At 13 weeks, there was no heartbeat.  Surgery, complications, another surgery, and I was no longer pregnant. I was not okay.  I was devastated.  I knew I could grow babies. Why had my body turned against me?  Was God telling me 4 was enough? What I learned was a lot of humility.  I learned empathy for other women that went through this multiple times and I no longer took my fertility for granted.  Though at times I felt I had no right to feel bad because I already had 4 beautiful kids and I was being greedy.  Then my doctor told me something I wish he never had.  The last baby was a girl.  The one with little arms and legs was a girl.  Really?  Thanks.

After a few months of healing and physically and emotionally, it was out of sheer determination I was going to have another kid.  Obviously, I was supposed to have another girl. And I finally did have baby number 5.  And baby number 6 (surprise!), and they both had boy parts. Where did SHE go?  Where did the baby girl with little arms and legs go?  I don't know.  I will always wonder if I will meet her someday or she is with another family that had 6 tyrant boys and jumped for joy at her arrival.

I was a bit disappointed at first when the boy parts of the last two babies were revealed.  And the faces of my family looked like I had let them down immensely. But of course we loved our boy bundles whole heartedly from their first breath.   These babies, every one, is a gift.  A loud, messy, ungrateful gift.

The Family: A Proclamation to the World says,

"ALL HUMAN BEINGS—male and female—are created in the image of God. Each is a beloved spirit son or daughter of heavenly parents, and, as such, each has a divine nature and destiny. Gender is an essential characteristic of individual pre-mortal, mortal, and eternal identity and purpose.The Proclamation to Family says, "

My boys and my girls have a divine destiny and eternal identity.  No pressure on my part. None. At.  All.  I just have to raise them and nurture them and help them realize their purpose in this life.
So glad I have some heavenly help.  That little baby girl would be 16 now and in full on teen girl mode.  In my fragile, 49 yr old parenting state, maybe God was wiser than me after all.