There is an amazing article in this week’s America magazine.  (The Oct. 5, 2009 issue.)  It’s called “A Fiery Gift: A spiritual case for natural childbirth.”  Susan Windley-Daoust has a deeper perspective on the issue, one I hadn’t considered, and I think everyone (female, or otherwise, and likely to give birth sometime soon or otherwise!) ought to read this.  I think she is absolutely right-on.

The gist, if you don’t care to read it for yourself, is that the process of birth, if left relatively un-tampered with, is a powerful parallel experience to some parts of the journey through prayer to God.  In fact, she worries about the effect missing out on a “natural” birth may be having on the spiritual lives of the women of this country: “But when an overwhelming majority of women in the United States have unnecessarily scheduled or medically augumented births, we must ask: Do we lose a window to God?  A window to the interior life?  When the Holy Spirit initiates a spiritual birth to something greater within us, will any of us be able to say, ‘I’ve been here before?'”

Go to your library, or do what you have to, but read this article.  It makes me want to stop the pregnant women I see every time we go to the zoo (there are always a ton of pregnant women at the zoo!)  and ask if they have considered (really, carefully considered, with the benefit of good information) how they are going to bring their babies into the world.  I am convinced that childbirth is transformative.  I am convinced that God designed it to be that way.  Not easy.  Most things worth doing are at least a little hard.  But transformative, in part in preparation for the challenges the next many years of child rearing bring.  Perhaps, if Susan Windley-Daoust is right (and I think she is), in preparation especially for the spiritual challenges these little ones bring us.  I think she asks a very important question:  What are we, as a community of women, as a church of women, missing?

This is a movie worth seeing.  For me, it pulled up a lot of good and bad memories, and I could just watch babies being born all day.  It’s really amazing to see.  I tend to gasp when this squirming little one suddenly comes out, even though I know it’s coming.

Anyway, if I knew someone who thought they didn’t have time to research birth choices, I would recommend this movie, and hopefully by the end of it they would realize they had to find time to do this sort of reading and research.  I found the discussion of the difference between the artificial hormones doctors use to induce labor and the natural hormones women get for and from labor particularly interesting.

Someday I’m going to get involved in what I like to think of as the “better birthing” movement…someday…maybe soon…

Lucy gave us the synopsis of Samantha’s birth this morning.  It went more or less like this:

“We drove to that house, and Mommy pooped in the bathtub.  You (Mommy) did a good job.  And that was Samantha!”

And we laughed.

Later, I heard Craig doctoring Lucy’s scraped knees while I was feeding Samantha.  He said, among other things, and over her screams,

“You know, a lot of your pain is psychological.”

And I laughed.  Hard.  Never a dull moment here!

It’s strange to have the impulse to write again. For so long, I would say years, in fact, I have felt that not only do I not have anything to say, but even if I did have a topic to address, my words were doomed to inadequacy. Somehow, the birth of my second child has cured me of this fear, even if it has not given my words any more actual potency. (more…)

I had the privilege over the course of the last two weeks to be present at two of the great moments of life conducted as they ought to be.

Less than two weeks ago, on November 5, our second daughter was born. Samantha Rose weighed 8lbs 4oz and was 20 inches long. She has a tuft of dark black hair, which shocked me after fair, bald baby we had met with in our first daughter. In any circumstances, she was our small miracle. (more…)

Reader beware: this is long and detailed!! I didn’t want to forget anything.

It took us a while to find the right environment for the birth of our second child, but after visiting three different doctors and still not being totally comfortable with the one we chose, we heard about a midwife who would do a VBAC. (Our first baby, Lucy, was breech so our planned drug-free hospital delivery had suddenly become a c-section.) We had to drive an hour across state lines to do it, but we had a “home birth” in another couple’s home and it was well worth all the trouble. (more…)