My one and only

I do not like green jello.
In fact, I loathe it.
It, and all of its multi-hued cousins, with or without chunks of pineapple, carrots, or mini marshmallows.
And yet, I am a card-carrying member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. A Mormon.
Here are a few other ways I do not fit the stereotypical Mormon (jello) mold:
• I don’t particularly care for ice cream. I find it to be just okay. And we rarely have any in the house.
• I don’t use the mock swear words: flip, fetch, or ‘oh my heck’.
• Not only did I not attend BYU, I never even wanted to.
• I am generally on time for meetings.
• And, here’s the big one: I have only one child.

Early in our marriage, when W and I were discussing how many children we’d like to have, we both said five. Because, well, we wanted to keep things manageable.

We hadn’t even celebrated our first anniversary when the questions began.
Q: When are you going to get pregnant?
A: Oh, I’m not really sure.
Q: What are you guys waiting for?
A: Well, we haven’t been married all that long yet.
Q: You know, you’re not a real family until you have children.
A: Um, is that a question?
Q: So, when-
A: WOULD YOU JUST LEAVE IT ALONE!

But to give ourselves time to grow as a couple we had made the rational decision to wait a while before starting our family. You know, awhile. Like the four entire months we waited before I went off the pill and we began planning our exciting little future.
Yet, month after month, I got a bit more worried when that future failed to materialize. And those annoying questions just kept coming.
That’s how W and I came to be strapped into the fun and exciting rollercoaster ride called Infertility.
Oh and it was fun, let me tell you. I’m not sure if it was an after effect of the birth-control pills or the because I was so keyed up about getting pregnant, but my body started playing tricks on me. My once-reliable little monthly visit started arriving later and later. My usual 29 days became 35, then 40, eventually only arriving a day or two after taking a pregnancy test; always one line, never two. I was drowning in a sea of negative EPTs, basal thermometers, charts, and unsolicited advice. Whoo-hoo!

“Try propping your hips up with a rolled up towel, after, you know…”
“Are you taking your temperature?”
“Go without sex for a couple of weeks. That will make you both really potent.”
“Have W wear an ice-pack.”
“Just relax. As soon as you stop trying to get pregnant, you will.”
Huh?

Eventually we got our family doctor involved and he ran some tests.
A couple of days later, I was at work, but W was at home nursing a nasty cold. He was the one who answered the doctor’s phone call.
I had just finished lunch: leftover meatloaf from the night before. I was rinsing my dish in the breakroom sink when I heard the phone ring on my desk. I walked over and picked it up; W’s voice cracked as he gave me the test results.
“…little to no chance of conceiving on our own…maybe get another opinion…I’m so sorry…”
I walked, in a daze, to my supervisor’s office and informed her that I had received some news from home and needed to take the rest of the day off. Looking down, I saw that that I was still holding my tuperware lunch container. It was dripping all over the carpet.
Over the course of the next few years W and I consulted specialists. We succumbed to more painful and humiliating tests. We even tried surgery to correct the problem. We cried. We prayed. And we learned to lean on each other for support.
After nearly four years of riding that hellish rollercoaster, we pulled into the loading area and were given the chance to ride again or exit. The specialist confirmed that the surgery was not successful. In fact they had discovered more problems. We could do some more tests, try some new procedures, or just stop.
We bolted for the exits, with relief.
On the drive home from that appointment, we chose to adopt. We called an agency that very afternoon.
Eight months and several small miracles later, our perfect, beautiful daughter was placed into our waiting arms. (Once again, thank-you, K.)
There is so much more I could share with you here. Like how wonderful adoption is. What a courageous, selfless, loving young woman brought our baby into this world. How five pounds, three ounces can move the world. How she healed our broken hearts.
But this is a blog-post, not a book. I’ll save those things for another time.
Before our girl by was even two years old, the questions began again.
“When are you going to get another one?”
We truly didn’t know. W and I had thought we’d begin the adoption process again when our daughter was 18 months. That way if we got a baby quickly our children wouldn’t be too close together. And if it took us a couple of years, they’d still be close in age.
But eighteen months came and went. We wanted another child, but we weren’t ready. It just didn’t feel right. We decided to revisit the idea when our baby turned two.
That time we actually got the paperwork and started filling it out, but it still didn’t feel right. It felt wrong. We put it off for another year.
Shortly before our girl turned three we tried again. This time we made all the way past the homestudy and onto a waiting list.
Every night our daughter prayed that God would give her a baby sister. W and I added our prayers to hers, but it still didn’t feel quite right.
We did want another child. Sometimes a little. Sometimes a lot. We were on another kind of rollercoaster.
Two years passed. Our girl decided she no longer wanted a baby sister.
And W and I? Bit by bit, ever so gradually, we came to the decision that ‘now’ is still not the time. We don’t know why, but it’s true. We withdrew our names from the waiting list.
Still I struggled. I watched my friends having their second, then third babies. I told myself “someday, when the time is right”. Eventually someday turned into maybe, and then maybe-not, but at times it still hurt.
One day about a year ago, my little girl and I were snuggled up together under my grandmother’s blue blanket. On my lap lay Antoine De Saint-Exupery’s “The Little Prince”. I wasn’t thinking about anything other than the sweet smell of my little girl’s hair and the warmth of her next to me as I read aloud.

“To be sure, an ordinary passerby would think that my rose looked just like [any other]… But in herself she is more important than all the hundreds of other roses: because it is she that I have watered; because it is she that I have put under the glass globe; because it is she that I have sheltered behind the screen; because it is for her that I have killed the caterpillars (except the two or three that we have saved to become butterflies) because it is she that I have listened to, when she grumbled, or boasted, or even sometimes when she said nothing. Because she is my rose.”

That passage took my breath away. I looked down at my girl and knew.
I do not need a bush full of roses. I do not need five. I do not even need two.
And even if one day my maybe-not turns into definitely-not, this will still be true:
I have my rose, unique in all the world. And she is enough.

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