The Way It Could Be (and Should Be?) Part 2
Last time I touched a little on personal responsibility, and now I want to expound a little on that and talk about the mindset that helps that to happen. One of the biggest tragedies in all of our culture’s wanderings is that we have begun to remove God from every sphere of our lives, realizing collectively that to acknowledge Him as real means to be beholden to Him, and to become a servant, which rubs our very nature the wrong way. We are not the first culture to be deluded into thinking we will somehow be better off without Him, and we will not be the last. What every culture fails to remember, however, is that in casting off His yoke, we take a far heavier yoke that gets more burdensome from generation to generation as our children reap what we have sewn. What does this have to do with women’s health in general and birth in specific? I think it is immeasurably important in understanding some of the disconnects that women make from taking responsibility for their own health and birth experiences. It has been falsely said of midwives that they sometimes sacrifice the safety of the situation for the “experience” that birth can be. While that is a slanderous and obviously false statement to anyone who understands the rigor of the training a midwife goes through, there is a reason people believe it to be true. It may be that some people even begin their search for a home birth midwife because they have heard of this experience and want to have one of their own. Over time, though, they come to understand that the midwife’s first concern, as it should be, is with the safety and well-being of the mama and the baby, and that the experience is just what happens when the whole woman is considered in the choices that are made concerning child birth. So, people who attack a positive childbirth experience as the wrong goal are missing the point that it is not the goal, but instead a side benefit of being careful to understand and respect how people are made, and consequently, what is the best way to care for them. Even the medical field has been forced to acknowledge that strong faith and prayer have a part in healing, and in the care of a woman by a Christian midwife, this component is not forgotten, but instead celebrated as a help in a natural and God breathed process.
What then, is the responsibility of the individual woman in recognizing this and applying it to her own life? First, we must understand that the Creator of the process has an interest in being a part of every phase of pregnancy and childbirth, and any medical decisions we may make in other areas of our health. The spiritual lessons that can be learned from pregnancy and labor are extensive and the fact that these are missed by many women who never think to include God in the process at all is a tragedy. It is for this reason that many women feel compelled to entrust their care entirely to a qualified surgeon when surgery should only rarely be considered in the realm of childbirth. They recognize at their core the need to trust someone outside themselves, and turn the doctor into a sort of savior, who they begin to trust without question. God never enters the conversation, and instead, you will hear women say things without pause or careful consideration that indicate that they believe that it is indeed their doctor who has provided a favorable outcome, even in cases where massive interventions have actually almost caused tragedy. We are wired to trust somebody, and when we remove God, the caregiver becomes the next obvious choice, and it becomes imperative that you choose the one that appears the most educated, or who gets the most chatter from friends and relatives. We rarely stop to consider why all that “life-saving” from near tragic experiences may have occurred in the first place, instead believing that for some reason most women encounter bad circumstances from which they must be rescued to successfully go home with a healthy baby. The inverse is actually the truth. Women are designed by God to miraculously sustain healthy pregnancies, endure labor, and deliver vigorous infants. Praise the Lord that in the circumstances where intervention is necessary, it is available at the hands of skilled surgeons, but in the vast majority of cases, no intervention is necessary.
Another layer is added to the mix when we consider the relationship a woman has with her God. When she has been in prayer for her child throughout her pregnancy, and when she is tuned into the Holy Spirit and listening to the Lord throughout her labor, and walking in the truth that she is loved and never alone, she does indeed have an experience that cannot be matched, even in the times when things may not go like she has planned. Even in the times when she ends up in the hospital facing a surgery, she can be at perfect peace, because she knows that God has brought her where she needs to be for this time in her life for her good and the good of her child for whom she has prayed. As women, only we can choose this level of intimacy and trust with our Lord, and make decisions that reflect that our trust is in no one but Him, knowing that He is working on our behalf for our good. These women walk away with birth stories that begin with, “Let me tell you how God worked in my circumstances.” No experience on earth can top that.
For an example of what birth looks like when God and family and their place in it are honored, check out this link: http://birthwithoutfearblog.com/2012/06/21/home-water-birth-baby-born-in-the-caul/
