Turmoil
I reached out to friends and family for support. There were days when Andrew stayed home from work to help me, or fasted and prayed for my recovery. I left all my responsibilities behind and took an overnight trip to my parents’ house carrying in my pocket an invisible hug that my youngest child had handed me “for later” as I left.
And there was a day when I missed a chance to reach out for support. I wrote in my journal on a Tuesday, “I feel such a yearning to talk to people about what I’m going through” - and then remembered: that Sunday, through an unusual set of circumstances, I had had four separate interviews with priesthood leaders at church. Every one of them had asked me, “How are you?” One of them looked me in the eye and asked me twice. And each time I lied (there’s no more accurate word for it!) and said, “I’m fine.” I just couldn’t find the courage, or the words, to share what I was really feeling.
I had a positive pregnancy test in late March. The snow was finally melting. There were days of joy and anticipation - there must have been, for I wrote in my journal, “I wanted to, and could, anticipate and love this child for whatever length of time he was mine” - but they were isolated and short-lived. I had dropped my previous doctor and struggled to find a new one who would make me feel secure, taken care of.
The turmoil reached a climax on the first Sunday in April. My parents drove down to spend the day with us, and I leaned into the warmth of their love and acceptance. It wasn’t an easy time for them: they were in the process of diagnosing the cancer that was to haunt the last thirteen years of my father’s life. I mentioned to them that I was two days from Loila’s due date. Dad looked at me with a dawning realization: “I wonder if your body is getting ready to have a baby?”
That due date turned out to be an emotional time for years to come. I started a poem at the beginning of April 2006, and refined it in later years: