Flesh > Tin

I have never, in my sheltered lifetime, come across an unsavory tin soldier. Literature is resplendent with honorable tin men who march to the beats of meticulous drums. You've got your tin soldier in Miss Suzy that defends a poor squirrel after she gets hit by the forest mob. (One of our favorite Christmas books.) You've got your Steadfast Tin Soldier who still gets the girl even though he only has one leg and was swallowed by a fish and nearly beat up by a demonic jack-in-the-box. (Also my favorite short on Fantasia: 2000.) And you've got the "every man" tin soldier that C.S. Lewis describes here:

The real Son of God is at your side. He is beginning to turn you into the same kind of thing as Himself. He is beginning, so to speak, to turn the tin soldier into a live man. The part of you that does not like it is the part that is still tin.

Tin Melissa doesn't like a failed IVF. Fleshy Melissa knows it will all work for her good. What was I saying about being in between? Hoping my flesh > my tin.

*Found this little guy on Etsy last week. It's seriously hard to find any sort of tin soldier for purchase. I look online all the time. RE found me an old glass Avon perfume bottle shaped like a tin soldier and gave it to me for Christmas a couple of years ago, which I treasure. If you ever come across a tin soldier SNAG IT for heaven's sake- they stand for all that is good!

Swoop

 

I never lost as much but twice, and that was in the sod.

Twice have I stood a beggar before the door of God!

Angels - twice descending reimbursed my store -

Burglar! Banker - Father! I am poor once more!

-Emily Dickinson

What a week. What a long week. But such a good week, too. I can testify that God does not leave us alone in our trials. Indeed, there are angels among us. Greg and I are once again left in jaw-dropping awe at all of the angels that have quickly swooped in and out of our lives. Family angels, neighbor angels, old roommate angels, faraway angels.

I have learned that the best thing to say when you don't know what to say is a simple I LOVE YOU or I'M THINKING ABOUT YOU. If words are uncomfortable then give food. Don't attempt to explain why it happened or make it lighter than it is. It may be light to you, but to me it feels like slow suffocation via the anvil on my heart.

I also find it humbling that I've been offered sympathy by people that are single or don't have any children. While they could justifiably say Quit your whining! At least you have a husband and a kid! their love remains unfeigned and without guile. I hope that I can be just as pure in my offerings.

Greg thought I should attend the Relief Society Christmas dinner at church on Wednesday. I was too scared to go. I had worn my coat like armor for two days straight and was afraid of people looking at me. What are you afraid of? These are your friends. Everyone there loves you. There's no safer place you could go. I walked up to the church in my slippers and snuck in an hour late, just in time for the devotional on angels: EVERYONE IN THIS ROOM IS AN ANGEL TO SOMEONE ELSE. YOU ARE SOMEONE'S ANGEL. REMEMBER THAT. That room was full of my angels. Afterwards there were hugs and tears and enough normalcy and laughter to allow me to shed my coat and walk home a little lighter. Smaller anvil.

I love metamorphoses whether they be natural or forced. Caterpillar to butterfly, trash to treasure, sinner to saint...it makes no difference to me. I love the reminder that change is always a possibility. At this moment I know that because of the atonement of Jesus Christ I won't be a sad creature forever. He will help me molt each layer of sorrow until I have a new skin, until I am a new creature (1). The angels are also assisting with the molting.

As a twice bankrupted beggar I am learning that with angels and the promise of new skin there is still much to look forward to.

This was my alternate photo. See, I still have my sense of humor. That line is the best line of the movie. Could Lucy be any cuter? She wanted to eat those corn angels.

(1)- 2 Corinthians 5:17

Unbalanced Figure

Why should we mourn or think our lot is hard?

'Tis not so; all is right.

Why should we think to earn a great reward

If we now shun the fight?

Gird up your loins, fresh courage take;

Our God will never us forsake;

And soon we'll have this tale to tell-

All is well, all is well.

-William Clayton, "Come, Come, Ye Saints"

Smithereens

CLEARLY, I WASN'T EXPECTING THIS.

I put on my favorite purple sweater and did really good eye make-up so that my victory picture with our doctor would do the annals of Lawson History justice. After we found out we were going to call our families, eat celebratory avocado eggolls at California Pizza Kitchen, drop a few bucks at bareMinerals and buy a onesie for a trophy. We were going to deliver balloons to RE's school so she could celebrate with all her classmates. And then tonight we would buy our tree and I was going to hang the lights and Greg was going to kiss my tummy while RE twirled to Christmas music. It was going to be nothing but merry and bright.

I gave them my vein. We waited on the sofa for an hour and twenty minutes. I saw other couples come in. One was in for egg retrieval. I knew I was two weeks ahead of them and pitied their wait. I knew I was mere minutes from the joy.

He called us in his office and didn't waste a second. "So none of them took.....blah blah blah." I didn't hear the rest of what he said. He kept talking and I kept looking at Greg. We were both paralyzed. "I cannot process what you are saying." The doc said that was okay and to call when I am ready to talk or if I need antidepressants. What? I gave him a hug, hugged the embryologist, hugged the nurses, hugged the lady that does the billing. They were all so sweet.

This cannot be happening.

Greg had to drop off some parts at the store in Orem so I just sat in his parked truck facing the mall. I stared at the two cement horses in front of P.F. Chang's the entire time I bawled to my dad on my cell. He told me that this is the same week they lost their twins and that Mom just held their dog and looked at their Christmas tree until she got through it. It made me think about Elder Holland's line, "Sometimes the only way out is through." I cannot fathom losing one's first pregnancy, stillborn twin boys, at almost 7 months and having to birth them. My poor mother. My embryos didn't even grow in me. I don't know why they didn't. The lining was right, the levels were right, my diet was right, I did everything to the letter of the law. Why can't I grow anything?

Cousin S sent an inspired message. She said Please don't lose faith. You may not yet have reached the water's edge of the Red Sea where God's miracle is prepared to take place. I love her. I know the Lord will help me figure out how to get to the water's edge.

Half a Thai wrap at Paradise and finally a cookie. I haven't had sugar or chocolate in so long that the cookie made my tummy hurt and the wrap just tasted like sadness. Greg said we should go buy something. I don't want anything. Oh, but we needed stamps. So I bought some stamps from the self-serve kiosk while Kenon gave me a great bit of advice on my cell.

Home. Crawled on top of our bed and cried ourselves to sleep with arms entwined and puppy right next to us. My skull hurts from crying. I have never cried this much. I want Greg's arms around me forever. When we wake up I say, "I feel like Dan Marino. You know, I can't win the Superbowl." Greg corrects me, "You mean like John Elway. He played in four Superbowls until he won. We will do this." Somehow it always goes back to the Broncos with that boy.

The angels start arriving. Baskets and treats and flowers and dinner offers. It's too much. I have already been given this kind of love after the miscarriage. I don't want to be "that girl" that always gets the "sorry you don't have a baby" tokens. I don't know how to thank people. I don't know how to be the recipient President Uchtdorf said I should be in the devotional last night.

Picked RE up. She didn't believe us. When she realized we weren't kidding she started sobbing. This was the worst part for me.

Stopped at Deseret Book to buy something and they gave Greg a free piece of banana cream pie. He seemed happy about it. I hate pie. Luckily I came home to a caramel bar on the porch from my sister Cristall. It's the only Christmas treat my mom made that I like. The others all had coconut or nuts in them. I think the caramel bar glued my heart together a little.

Family Home Evening. Greg gave a really good lesson about accepting the Lord's will and then we told RE she was more of a miracle then we ever knew. Teary family hugs, good spirit at home. RE plinked out two carols on the piano for us to sing to. I thought about George Bailey, of all things, and how wonderful the scene in our living room would look to someone watching through the window. Puppies know when you're sad, so Lucy acted like a mountain goat on meth and jumped all over the living room cracking us up. We needed some comic relief.

Bought the prettiest Frasier fir at the lot and fit it in the stand, but it needs to fall through the night. Tomorrow will reveal its real shape and then I can figure out where to trim it.

I think I will keep falling through the night, too, and see what kind of shape tomorrow brings.

The only things I know at this moment are that I still love the Lord, He still loves me, and this would have worked if it were the right time. I know that the Lord will bind my broken heart and hold it together until it is healed. I have had a prayer in that broken heart all day begging to be shielded and protected from bitterness, withdrawl and murmuring.

I know that Greg and I will get through this, even if he cried today for maybe the 5th time in our marriage. I know that this would have stung more deeply if we hadn't come home to a puppy we love and a daughter that is already our sun, moon and stars. There is still beauty in these ashes. The fiery furnace seems to need me a bit longer until I'm strong enough. Forged steel is a rough recipe. 

I saw this pair of earrings in the overpriced Sundance catalog that has a tree engraved on the front and the phrase GROW STRONG on the back.

Maybe I can GROW STRONGer. Maybe that is all that can grow inside of me right now.

"We always think of failure as the antithesis of success, but it isn't. Success often lies just the other side of failure." -Leo F. Buscaglia

Egyptians

We are often counseled in our religion to liken the scriptures unto ourselves. It means to put yourself in that story. Whether you become a David that realizes you can kill your personal Goliaths or a Daniel who can be safe despite life's lions' dens it is a way of realizing that you're gonna make it because the Lord is right there with you. Likening myself as a child of Israel during the time of Moses just saved me.

The children of Israel were Hebrew slaves to Egypt's pharaohs for hundreds of years for no good reason (other than this is how the Lord chose to set it all up). Pharaoh was nervous about the many-numbered and fastly-growing Hebrews, so he shackled them with lives of slavery to ensure they had no power in his land.

Along came Moses, the prophet chosen to free them, with his asking nicely and asking again and then resorting to the ten plagues. Finally the children of Israel were free to leave. I'm sure there were many Israelites who were more scared of an uncharted, but free, wilderness than a sub-par life of Egyptian enslavement. I'm sure it took a lot of faith to follow Moses out of the only life they knew towards a giant question mark. Sometimes all you've got to pack is your faith and hope in what you profess to believe.

The Lord told Moses to camp by the Red Sea so that Pharaoh would think they were trapped and come after them. The Lord assured Moses that He was doing this so that Pharaoh and everyone else would know that He is the Lord.

Sure enough, Pharaoh organized an attack with ALL of his chariots, ALL of his horses, ALL of his armies, ALL of his men. Everything he had. It seems like such overkill considering they were trapped.  Evil sure comes on strong when the opponent is cornered.

As the Egyptians were encroaching upon the defenseless Israelites, they cried to the Lord, which means they prayed their hearts out. They asked Moses, "Were there no graves in Egypt?", meaning, "We didn't have to take this whole journey just to die by the sea, did we?" I'm sure it was a very scary and confusing moment to see armies of all that you fear coming from one side and an ocean on the other.

Then, my favorite part:

Moses declared to the people: FEAR YE NOT, STAND STILL, AND SEE THE SALVATION OF THE LORD, WHICH HE WILL SHEW TO YOU TO DAY: FOR THE EGYPTIANS WHOM YE HAVE SEEN TO DAY, YE SHALL SEE THEM AGAIN NO MORE FOR EVER. THE LORD WILL FIGHT FOR YOU, AND YE SHALL HOLD YOUR PEACE.

(The footnote of the word "fight" says "divine protection." Meaning, it's all gonna work out.)

After Moses calmed the people, the Lord told Moses to get the people moving forward, so Moses parted the Red Sea with his staff and the rest is history. They crossed an ocean on dry ground and not one Egyptian survived.

Likening this to myself:

For ten years I have been enslaved to the Pharaoh of Infertility for no good reason (other than this is how the Lord chose to set it all up). Don't confuse my proclamation of enslavement with me not loving or being thankful for my life. My life is awesome, but I have been proverbially shackled to the lack of a new baby for over a decade now. No matter the trips we have taken, the things we have bought, the friends that we have, the joys that we've lived, there has always been the overhanging oppression of not having what I really want. My freedom, so to speak, was a new baby.

It took a lot of time and faith and courage to leave that land and pursue a baby through IVF. You must understand that there isn't a person on earth more petrified of needles than me. Greg doesn't understand because he isn't afraid of needles, but RE pointed out that he is deathly afraid of snakes and that if we were really being fair he should have to hold four live snakes a day.

And so I have left my Egypt, the land of accepting I'll never have more babies, and begun my journey into the fertility-treatment wilderness. The wilderness has been pretty accommodating. I believe I have been blessed to overlook the invasiveness of the methods. I've been manipulated and injected and taken from and given back to and I'm still here to tell the tale. Weary, hopeful, and a little proud of myself I am camping by the Red Sea for the night with only faith in my pack. Tomorrow is the final visit to the doctor. The visit that declares PREGNANT or NOT PREGNANT.

The armies ensue. Every fear that could possibly exist is after me on a Egyptian-laden chariot with speed like no other, ready to beat me down and take me back to the land I used to live in. The legitimate fear of it not working is very real.

What if it doesn't work? Did I go through all of this just to have it not work? I could have stayed where I was three months ago and gotten the same result. I didn't need to invest in science, have Greg take a ton of days off work to go to appointments, turn myself into a human voodoo doll and take pills that made my body throb with pain just to be right where I was three months ago, did I? And although I have been praying all along, I turned to the Lord in this darkest moment with a cry unlike any other I have ever offered. And the prompting was to read the story of Moses parting the Red Sea. So I got my Bible and flipped to Exodus 14 and there it was:

FEAR YE NOT, STAND STILL, AND SEE THE SALVATION OF THE LORD, WHICH HE WILL SHEW TO YOU TO DAY: FOR THE EGYPTIANS WHOM YE HAVE SEEN TO DAY, YE SHALL SEE THEM AGAIN NO MORE FOR EVER. THE LORD WILL FIGHT FOR YOU, AND YE SHALL HOLD YOUR PEACE.

I believe this is the last day that those Egyptians will chase me. Tomorrow I will find out I'm pregnant and while there will surely be new trials in that new wilderness on the other side of the Red Sea, there will be an absence of those old weights, those shackles of fear and despair and longing. Those Egyptians? I will see them again NO MORE FOREVER. There have been too many miracles and too much divine guidance for me not to believe I am cornered right where the Lord wants me.

I am in the Lord's hands, and nobody fights like the Lord.

*Boz Scaggs "Lost It" lyrics, photo taken at Soldier Hollow, Midway, Utah