Blessed to be Born

-Wow, hello again world and friends, it has been a long time! I have a post ahead explaining all that has taken place to keep me from blogging for so many weeks. I want to briefly say a thank you to all of you (you know who you are!) who sent sweet letters about missing my blogging and hoping for another post soon. You are too sweet. I am so verbose and often random, I consider myself privileged to have such kind comments and dedicated readers! God bless you, update to come soon!

Until then, I will write about something that has been on my mind for too long to remember – the birth of a child.

When I was approximately 6 months pregnant with my daughter Maron (and highly naive and uneducated about childbirth) I was doing paperwork or something insignificant when all of the sudden, I felt some interesting things happening to my body. I was thirsty and hoped it would pass, and got in my car (on the way to a friend’s house on the west side) and stopped at a drive-through to buy something and get some water to go. By the time I was ready to head out and keep driving, I was having contractions so strong I called my husband at work. They seemed to subside for a while so I told him to not worry and to stay at work. But thank goodness he didn’t listen and told me he was on his way, because they got bad enough and were so close together I had to go to the emergency room.

My dehydration (which research has thankfully taught me now, along with some serious personal experience!) sent me into premature labor. Take it from me pregnant ladies – stay hydrated! Thankfully (very much so) they had a drug designed to stop labor, some women even have to go home with this drug in a drip if they are prone to premature labor!

This experience sent me into a crazy panic of sorts to find out EVERYTHING I could about anything related to the conception, pregnancy, childbirth, postpartum, you name it. I read and read and read and read. It was wonderful, and I would not trade it for the world. I am a major talk-radio junkie for the same reason reading is such a delight – different opinions and the uniqueness of individuals’ takes on things is not only informative, but fascinating – even if they are dead wrong!

One problem occurred though – through my reading, I developed a certain bias (not that you shouldn’t know what you think about things, you should) and wouldn’t allow my mind to absorb much else. Basically, it was natural childbirth as unassisted as possible, both during labor and in postpartum care. I had my long list of answers for anyone that thought differently and jumped on the cart with everyone who thought like me. Now, like I said before, this was a wonderful time of learning, and in fact, you will find that not a whole lot has changed about what I still hope to achieve in my own birth(s), or what I find to be most beneficial for moms. The difference now, is I have begun to see how thinking and living idealistically hurts others (as well as ourselves) when those expectations are not met, and also causes us to not be thankful for what God has provided if it is outside our idealistic realm .

Let’s think about a couple of ideals, shall we? Married people – God’s Word gives us clear outlines for a marriage that honors Him. Submission for a wife, Christ-like headship for a husband, husbands providing for their families physically and spiritually, and wives loving their husbands and their children and being good home-makers. All good, Godly, and clear right? So what about when you have a fight, the wife tries to lead, the husband has a chauvinistic moment and is way behind on family Bible study, and your kids are about the last thing you are loving, and the dishes are still in the sink because you’re depressed? Then what? Then where do we turn if we say these ideals are set in stone and are perfectly achievable 100% of the time? Well, I’ll tell ya what, dad will be buying beer on his way home from work, and mom will be in front of a chick flick with bon bons faster than she can get to a sale at Target. Setting idealistic goals (no matter how good and Godly they are) will only ever lead to pride (believing we are attaining these things in our own strength) depression, and a lack of motivation to do anything, to say the least. THANK GOD that He has provision in His Word for when all our good intentions fall by the wayside and we find ourselves less than adequate to do the job – FORGIVENESS, Love, Strength, An Advocate, Mercy, Grace, and Compassion to name a few. THANK GOD He does not give up on you and I. THANK GOD His mercies are new EVERY morning, or else we would practically die from despair alone! I know…the verbosity has you wondering where this is going?

Well, childbirth is a similar thing. God created our bodies to do it, and it is a natural thing, and doing it naturally is a wonderful, beautiful thing.  But too often it is an ideal that we set without giving any thought to the COUNTLESS number of women who are not only helped, but whose lives are saved simply because of a single drug, or surgery that is performed in hospitals daily. As a woman who went through several hours of labor that would not progress, I can tell you firsthand, without the epidural I had (factoring in the fact that the night before I went into labor I had very little sleep due to a violent cough) to give me time to rest, I may not have had the strength I did to push for the hour and a half or more that I did (Maron was sunny-side-up). And the pitocin they gave caused the labor to progress very well, and saved me from what potentially could have been another day or more of labor if I had even progressed more at all!

It wasn’t what we “wanted”. It wasn’t our “ideal”. But it was a blessing, and actually, the epidural was non-existent in providing pain-relief at the end anyway, so my legs were not numb and I was able to push Maron out with feeling and able to walk right away.

Sure, C-sections are mis-used, and over-used, but what about the woman who would have died without one? Are our ideals so important to us that we leave no room for the affects of the fall on the human body that we would rather someone die than receive medical treatment? If so, I say we are really missing out on what matters most to God. We can say whatever we want about the organic, natural way of doing things, but the simple reality is (no matter what we believe) thousands of lives are saved through medical intervention, and rather than only complain about medical intervention like the monitors they make you wear during labor in a hospital (yes, I hate them too), what if we thanked God for the fact that that monitor cued the nurses that the baby’s heart rate was decreasing alerting them that the umbilical chord was wrapped around the child’s neck and would have resulted in a still-birth? What if instead of saying that perineal massage is always the answer, we thank God as well for the fact that C-section is available for the woman whose baby LITERALLY could not come out vaginally? Yes, they really do exist in the world.

I for one, think despite all the difficulties at the hospital, I am so supremely blessed to have received the care I have, to still be alive because my doctors were thorough, and yes, even supremely blessed to have had the pain relief I did. What a God to cause us to live in a world (and more specifically a country) where we can benefit from the knowledge, wisdom, and care of others, and when our ideals don’t work out, potentially have our lives saved!

Don’t be like I once was. Don’t live in an ideal land in your mind, where every woman is just like you or your mom or your grandma who pushed out a 14-lb. baby, never had an ultrasound, and never even took a Tylenol during postpartum. Every woman does not fit the ideal molds we want to try to make for them, and yes, there actually are women out there who can’t breastfeed! It really is possible! And aside from all of the above, let people do what they want! They are adults people. And yes, even if they don’t think like we do (or once did), they can still be quite informed, even much more informed than us! You take that epidural if you want it girl! You’ll have plenty of nights of pain from sleeplessness to make up for the pain-free birth

I don’t know about you folks, but after all I’ve read, listened to, and seen, I feel SO blessed to have been born, and so unbelievably blessed that my children are alive and healthy, and by God’s grace, my next one will be too. We can complain, complain, complain about the medical profession, and we probably all do have complaints of one kind or another. But can we stop to say our ideals are not always attainable, and be thankful? Let us remember to be thankful this day for the health care we receive, we may not always have it. Until next time,

~May His face shine on you.