Natural Childbirth in Retrospect

During my second trimester, Jensen and I decided that it was very important to us to have a natural childbirth, meaning having our baby without the use of drugs or unnecessary medical interventions. Whenever I told someone this, they would be pretty shocked that I didn't want the epidural. Funny thing is that when I learned more details about the epidural procedure (not even mentioning possible side effects), it sounded far more terrifying to me than labor pains! I think if more people really knew ahead of time everything that an epidural involved, they wouldn't consider it such a no-brainer decision.

As a result of our decision, we began learning more and more about what happens to the body naturally in childbirth. It has been a bit of a spiritual journey to me. It convinces me all the more that we are created beings, and reinforces my trust that God has made me perfectly and wonderfully. Perfect doesn't mean flawless in my mind, just "the way it ought to be." It is all just too amazing, the way the right hormones turn on and off at just the right times, and the way it knows the right time that the baby is ready to come out -- all of this happening completely out of my influence and control. All I can do is go along for the ride and be a good steward of my body by eating healthily and exercising. The natural childbirth mantra of "learning to trust your body" has been synonymous for me with "learning to trust that God has made my body right, and therefore learning to trust God."

I had some friends/family challenge me to not try to control my birth situation because I was being so adamant about not wanting drugs, and to be more "trusting" of God about it. "Sometimes things happen and it's out of your control," they would say. They didn't want me to be too disappointed if things didn't go as I had hoped. I found it sort of ironic because my perspective on it all was so different. I felt that I did have complete trust in God in the situation, and for that reason was choosing to do it naturally because I believed that God had created the birthing process, and He created it to work without our intervening in the process. I felt like their encouragement to "trust and not try to control," was really advocating the opposite thing. It was saying, "fear the unknowns, and therefore be prepared if things don't go the way you want them to."

It reminded me of how sometimes we pray "if it be Your will prayers," because we don't want to be disappointed if things don't turn out how we had hoped. Richard Foster says we ought not pray "if it be Your will" prayers because we should only be praying the things that we believe are in God's will in the first place. "If it be Your will," is really only an indication of doubt, although maybe we feel like we're trying to be polite or something. With childbirth, my thought was, "why wouldn't it be in God's will for me to have my baby naturally, when the natural way is the process He has created?" And Praise Him for He has been very gracious to us through it all.

I think just about all women struggle with issues with body image during their lives, and I am no exception. Everyone has something about their bodies that they would like to change. For me, I am very small on top, and sort of big on the bottom, which makes finding bras and pants that fit sort of difficult. Pregnancy has been quite a healing experience for me in this area. I have really learned to love my body. In fact, I am downright amazed by it and that it has been able to grow and nuture from a tiny seed this beautiful human being. And even with my small breasts, I am able to feed and nurture my baby with milk, and I am thankful for these wide hips of mine even if it means wearing a size 10 because I think it probably made giving birth a lot easier. I have gained this new confidence that I am just the way I am supposed to be.

So how was labor without drugs? It was painful, I won't lie, but it never seemed too much to bear. Because we were at home the whole time, drugs were never an option and thus never a temptation. I believe that pain has a purpose and that a world without pain would also be void of soul, depth and meaning. As the Bible says, "we also rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given us." (Romans 5:3-5) In this case the pain told me how to work with my body to birth this baby. I didn't need someone to tell me when to push. Without drugs numbing the sensation, you know exactly when to push.

I learned a few pain coping techniques beforehand as well. There are two basic ways of coping with pain. One is to distract yourself by focusing on something outside the pain (such as your breathing), and the other way is to focus entirely on the pain, and somehow, that makes it more bearable. I found that focusing on the "center of the pain," worked very well for me. As I was pushing in the final stages, I focused in on the burning sensation of my perineum, and I think it gave me a strong determination to push harder because I was thinking, "the more it burns, the more the baby is coming out!!"

It was really amazing to watch Sophia wake up to the world once she was out. We saw her face change from bluish to pink within seconds and slowly she began to let out a few cries and open her eyes. That picture of when I first laid eyes on her is burned into my mind, and I'm glad I wasn't lethargic and out of it from any medication so I could really soak in that moment.