Poppy #2

Poppy's mother and I have had many discussions about infertility, and most of it has centered on whether or not it is a recent phenomenon. We have varying views about it, and I suppose that is because of our own life experiences. 

My mother was 22 years old when she had me and I was 22 when I had Jasmine. I don't think I had heard about women having a difficult time conceiving until perhaps 10 years ago. I also only knew of a handful of women who had suffered the loss of a child because of miscarriage. 

My era is one that was built on the industrial age, and Jasmine has had the benefit of going through her 20's and 30's in the information age. She and her peers are accustomed to living their lives out loud and sharing their experiences one keystroke at a time. 

With that being said, both of my daughters are extremely chaste when it comes to social media; I believe their brother shares more than the two of them combined. I am proud to say that all three of them are respectful versus inappropriate. And for this, I am grateful. 

My point is that Google, Wikipedia, WebMD, Bloggers, Snapchat, Instagram, Facebook and Podcasts, just to name a few, are all designed to inform the masses about any and everything. We are living in a world that loves to share.  

When Michelle Obama wrote about her own experiences with miscarriage and IVF in her book Becoming, many believed the former first lady was doing her part to help soften the stigma around pregnancy loss and infertility. 

My daughter has shared with me how difficult it has been for her when people voiced their assumptions about whether or not she wanted children and how invasive she thought people had become because they would inquire. 

I, on the other hand, found it to be a natural part of conversation that someone may have with a young couple. So much so that even after knowing what my daughter was going through, I found myself asking a young man one evening in Indiana, if he and his wife wanted to have children. Little did I know that they were having the exact same struggles, and they were deeply devastated that she had not yet conceived. 

So, have women of previous generations dealt with the same struggles and loss as the women of today? Have food, environment, stress, toxins, and God knows what else played a part? I don't have the answers, but I believe the latter is true. 

My daughter’s blog was very romantic, and it was a teary-eyed read. I honestly thought that mine would be more of the same. I am as surprised as you are. 

I believe in God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Ghost. I believe that He honored a select group of female relatives that Jasmine asked to pray with her after her second miscarriage. Two of my sisters and me, my other daughter and two of my nieces. We're the prayer squad. 

We prayed with her and for her and her husband almost every Saturday for well over a year. We fasted together every Friday from sun up to sun down in the month of September 2018. Nothing—absolutely nothing—by mouth.

We wrote individual devotions on prayer and faith that we will one day share in a book. We set individual goals and did the “21-day financial fast” by Michelle Singletary. We laughed, we cried, but most of all, we prayed. We prayed out loud with each of us taking turns on fb video messenger. 

We also prayed for our individual and collective family members and we shared a list of other concerns that had come to our attention. 

In the midst of our belief, God did it. He gave us Poppy. Middle name Grace. The significance of her middle name is quite obvious. Her first name is also quite special. 

The man who baptized me, performed my wedding ceremony, baptized two of my children, and presented my last child to Christ, died on October 12th, 1997. He was a man of small stature, but extremely formidable. 

He was a preacher’s preacher and a mentor to many. His Bible Study methods were extremely unorthodox and not to be missed. He was the professor of a satellite theology school, but saved his best lectures for us at Denny’s. 

Over the years, my mother and three of my sisters were his administrative assistants. And on the rare occasion, I would find him sitting with my father, in silence, listening to Jazz music. 

He was well sought after, but extremely humble. He was prone to helping intellects, but preferred to be around young, inquisitive people. And as such, my children were as devastated as I was when he went home to be with the Lord. 

  

His name - Dr. Emmerett W. Roland. But we called him "Poppy."