The Journey Begins

The beginning of my story does not occur the day of my cancer diagnosis but I'd have to say was many months before that.  Our third baby girl was born early in 2011 and was a perfect beautiful little baby in every way.  We were so happy with our growing little family and my husband felt that we were done having children but I kept having a nagging feeling we had one more member that hadn't joined us yet.  We weren't getting any younger and I knew I wouldn't want to wait very long to start trying again, especially given the fact that it took us over 6 months to get pregnant with our third.  When she was 9 months old I decided to bring up the topic again to my husband.  Once again we were at an impasse.  He wanted a vasectomy and I wanted to try one more time.  I had been convinced for some time now that if we had a 4th child it would be a boy.  He thought I was crazy.  I couldn't explain it, just a feeling I had.  We decided this was a decision that was larger than us and we needed to take it to our Heavenly Father in prayer and meditation.  We made the decision to go to the temple (for my non-LDS friends, that is our most sacred of worship sites and where we can feel the closest to the Spirit and receive divine guidance and comfort).  We don't get to the temple nearly as often as we would like due to work and family obligations.  It's hard to go on a date night more than twice a year let alone make it to the temple every month, it just doesn't happen.  But this was a particularly important time for us and we made it happen.  After we finished our temple session and were sitting quietly together in the celestial room I was praying hard for an answer and I'm sure Eric was too.
It was a significant experience for me so I shared it with my Mom and sister later that day.  Here is an excerpt of what I wrote in an e-mail right after it happened:

"We've been really struggling with the decision on whether or not to try for a 4th child for the last month
or so and I decided to really pray about it and try to seek an answer at the temple. I knew the answer might be no and I had come to accept the fact that we probably would only have 3 kids, but I wanted some
direction. We went through the session and I made it into the celestial room first and had about 10 minutes in
there alone before Eric came though. I began to feel very strongly that I needed to leave this major decision up to Eric and the still small voice said to me "He needs to win more". The question wasn't really answered for me but I instead got the very strong impression that Eric really needed to make the decision. I was crying by the time Eric came through with a huge mix of emotions as I was convinced this meant the end of our chances for another child and I was preparing to accept his choice whatever that may be. We sat together reverently for a while and the first words he said to me were "I want to try for a 4th kid". I was really shocked, that was the opposite of what I expected to hear but he was sure. I asked him later when he changed his mind and he said when he first walked into the celestial room. So I truly believe the spirit speaks to us, as long as we are open to accepting whatever the answer, even if it isn't exactly how we expected it to be answered."

We made the decision in the car on the way home that we would start trying that month, thinking it might take up to a year to get pregnant since it was a bit of a struggle the last time.  The Lord had other plans for us however, as I have learned time and again through all of this.  I was pregnant within 2 weeks of that temple visit.  I was still breastfeeding my 10 month old baby and had only had one cycle so thought for sure it would take longer, but that one cycle was all it took.  Little Luke was on his way and all because of that fateful day in the temple and the quiet meditation in the celestial room and the whispering of the spirit that we were not done and had one more soul that needed to join our family.