Dear Ellen and Angie:
Your first babies (and my first grandbabies!) are due in the next few weeks, and as eager as I am, I know each of you is even more excited. Your body is getting more crowded—with unkind pokes in the ribs, sleep-interrupting trips for "relief," and occasional baby hiccups that feel as if your little one is keeping time to some silent, inner music.
You hope to have a natural, unmedicated birth, and you have done your best to prepare. You and your husband have carefully selected your birth location and attendants, read books, attended classes, made a birth plan, and faithfully practiced comfort techniques like deep relaxation. I hope this series of articles has helped relieve some of the reasons so many women fear childbirth.
Still, these last few weeks are tinged with apprehension. Even with the best attitude and preparation, questions remain: will you be up to the challenge? Will anything go wrong? As you face those questions, there are some things I long for you to know—and to believe.
You are not alone. I had the same questions, as have countless women who have given birth throughout time. They are good questions. If you did not have them, you would not be taking seriously one of the most important events of your life. You are sharing in a universal and deeply felt female experience.
You were created for this event. Think of it: even before you were born, the organs in your body were formed to allow you to conceive and bear children. The individual ovum that became this baby was already present all those years ago. The intimacy of marital union, the delicate cyclical interplay of hormones required to conceive and to sustain a pregnancy—all these are interconnected in a grand design. It is a good design because it is God's. Your body is a miracle! As a normal function of your body, labor is a miracle too.
This will be one of the hardest things you ever do. No one questions that. You know that I dislike the word "pain" as I explained in an earlier article, because it tends to make us think of illness and suffering instead of normal sensations of physically stressful experiences. But childbirth labor is definitely just that: physically and emotionally demanding. It will require every ounce of your strength and the help of your husband and other loving people around you.
It also can be one of the most rewarding things you ever do. Challenges can help you draw on your own inner strength and rely on the support of others to a depth you didn't know you were capable of. The challenge of giving birth can have lifelong positive effects on your confidence as a woman and as a mother, and on your marriage. It is also common to experience a "high" after (and sometimes even during!) the kind of unmedicated birth you seek that defies description. No other life event comes close. It is worth the effort, every bit of it.
Sometimes it doesn't go as planned. You may create a good "birth plan," but ultimately birth is unplannable. Each labor takes its own unpredictable path. Experienced birth assistants know that your healthiest—and most comfortable—response is surrender to whatever the process is, no matter what you thought it might be.
Even beyond the unpredictability is the troubling reality that sometimes things don't go well. Birth complications happen, and intervention is sometimes needed. At those times, we are grateful for medical technology and trained professionals. Sometimes even with the best professional help the outcome may not be what you wish, and it brings grief. But…
Whatever happens, God wants to meet you in the experience. These are all physical and emotional facts, but they are spiritual realities as well. As the Bible teaches and our own life experiences make plain, there is conflict between the beauty of God's original d
RSS