Babies are proof that God is love.
It's quite a clever thing that God put the survival of the human race and knitted it together eternally with arguably one of the most pleasurable experiences humanity can engage in.
The creation of a child is a mystical process.
There is nothing like it.
More than creating music or movies or food or products or content or anything else in the whole world, the creation of a child is divine and mysterious.
It is the highest form of creativity because humanity is created in the image and likeness of God. We are the bridge between heaven and earth.
Therefore, pregnancy should not be taken lightly.
This is why I was adamant towards our doctors about our desire to have the safest and healthiest pregnancy possible.
In my previous post I recounted our experience with natural birthing through the Bradley Method. I also recounted the mountain of resistance we had to climb and endure with the medical field regarding our desires for natural birthing.
Nobody caused us more stress in our pregnancy journey than our own doctors.
Think about that one.
The people who are supposed to help you in one of the most delicate and vulnerable moments of your life are the very same ones who are inflicting you with excessive fear, doubt, confusion, anger, and pressure to violate your own value system.
Our doctors (2 out of the 3) were completely unprofessional and unacceptable, but we had to endure them because it was too late in the game to change doctors.
Luckily, we were not at the mercy of the medical field.
We took a Bradley Birthing Class at the beginning of our pregnancy journey. It was supposed to be a 12 week class, but we finished it essentially halfway through.
"My people perish for lack of knowledge." -Hosea 4:6
Being first-time parents we knew enough that we didn't know enough.
We needed guidance.
So my wife and I opened ourselves up to different ideas about childbirth, even opposing ideas, and we discussed them as thoroughly as we could. The one that made the most sense to us became the path we chose.
And I'm glad we chose this path because it equipped us to know how to talk to doctors and nurses.
Like I mentioned in the beginning: childbirth is a sacred process. And as such, deserves to be celebrated and respected with the same weight of dignity that God has bestowed upon it.
You can imagine how upset we were when our own doctors did not give us and our baby the dignity we deserved by constantly pressuring us to stray away from the path we have chosen.
As a husband and a father, knowing how to articulate yourself, to defend your faith -- whether by word or by deed -- is part of protecting your wife and children.
This God-given responsibility falls on the shoulders of the man of the house.
As Eve fell by the seduction of the serpent because Adam cowardly neglected his wife, so every husband, every father, and every man is divinely obligated to speak the truth with love as a weapon of righteousness to protect their loved ones from the lies that may tempt them to stray away.
If not, then the whole world falls apart.
Just look at Adam -- and the Fall of Mankind because he abandoned his wife.
Once we have received the proper guidance (Bradley Method) for our mission (healthy pregnancy) we were able to stay on course, persevere, and find the support we needed till we finished the race and won the prize for which we strived patiently till the very end (our healthy mommy and healthy baby).
Had we not received this proper guidance we would've been easily deceived into believing there was only our doctors way of doing things, which would have resulted in more pain for my wife, a riskier pregnancy for our baby, and a lot more unnecessary damage financially to our family.
Remember: just because someone is in a position of authority doesn't necessarily mean they are right.
We have to respect people in positions of authority, but we don't have to obey them if what they say is wrong.
Some people will say that right and wrong value systems are subjective -- and that's why they're constantly subject to people's manipulation tactics and schemes. I was like this for a long part of my life.
Obviously, there are personal truths which we hold on to because of our personal experiences in life.
But there are also transcendent truths that go beyond personal experiences that teach us how to live, which guides us to the Truth of all truths.
The sanctity of life, of marriage, and of family are a few examples of these transcendent truths. God established these truths, and people who oppose them oppose God who established them.
Just like there are transcendent truths, there are also lawless lies.
Lawless lies are beliefs and behaviors that seduce others away from the truth.
Lawless lies oppose transcendent truths by presenting itself in appealing ways to cause the weak and the vulnerable to stray away from the path.
Lawless lies are the whispers of Satan that encourages us to question the voice of God, not because we have doubts that need to be answered, but because the sweetness of the temptation temporarily tastes better than the crystal clear pure water that flows from the mountain of God.
An example of lawless lies is when a doctor tells their patient that they need a certain operation done and that if they refused this operation then they risk their health and the health of their child, when in reality, not only is the operation not necessary, but it's actually harmful to the mother and the child. Not only that, but the doctor will charge that same patient extra for something that shouldn't have been done in the first place.
Greed, deception, bullying, arrogance, false humility, false compassion, manipulation -- these are all manifestations of lawless lies. I'm sure you've seen this pattern among your own family members and friends.
These are the things my wife and I had to weather through for 9 months to protect our child.
How far are you willing to go to protect your family?
Not to coddle them or to make them live in a bubble, but to protect them from lies so that when the time came they can stand up on their own two feet and bear the weight of truth upon their shoulders.
How far are you willing to stand up for the truth?
That's a question everyone will answer with their own lives.
Nobody wants to live a lie.
Nobody truly wants to live in error.
But if we don't correct our errors, then we will live a lie.
So, it's important to find a path that's true and to stay humble enough so that greater truths can still guide us towards a much higher and truer path.
Otherwise, we will be susceptible to falsehoods.
With that said, here are 5 things our doctors got wrong about our childbirth:
Our baby's due date
Our baby's weight
The necessity of using medication
The necessity of inducing labor
The necessity of a c-section
I'll briefly touch on each point.
Our Baby's Due Date - Science works on estimations, not absolutes. Imagine your watching the weather channel and the forecast says 30% chance of rain in the evening. That means that there's a small possibility you'll need an umbrella when you go on your date tonight. And suppose it says 90% chance of heavy thunderstorm and flash flooding, then you might consider rescheduling the date altogether. But if it says 100% sunny day with clear skies in the evening, and when you leave the theater suddenly it rains all over you and your date, you either get really annoyed that the weather app failed you yet again or you take it in stride and extend the date. The point is, science works in estimations, not in absolutes. So when they told us our due date is exactly on this particular date, they expected us to receive their word as if it were the Word of God. And if the baby doesn't show up in that exact particular time, then they say the baby needs help. (Lies are most effective when they're phrased softly and in a compassionate tone). The truth is, doctors don't know a baby's exact due date -- only God does. Scientists have difficulty predicting the exact forecast for 7 days and they think they can predict a 9 month pregnancy process with absolutely certainty? A full term pregnancy is between 37 weeks to 42 weeks. Meaning, if your baby lands anywhere between that timeframe then it's -- here's the trigger word of the day -- normal. Our baby was 8 days past her "due date" -- and she's as healthy and as vibrant as can be.
Our Baby's Weight - For our last ultrasound check up we were told our baby was 9 lbs. And because we chose not to induce labor, they said that there's a higher chance she'll be bigger than 9 lbs by the time my wife gives birth. This increases the chances of our baby having shoulder dystocia, a complication that can be painful for both mother and child. Fortunately for us, none of this happened. Why? Because our baby wasn't 9 lbs to begin with; she was 8.4 lbs. Like I mentioned earlier, science works on estimations. And because the estimated weight was inaccurate, all the advice our doctors gave us about our baby's weight being a huge factor for health complication was absolutely misguided. By the way, it's a common practice that ultrasounds cannot give an accurate measurement of a baby's weight. Look it up. I had to do my own research to calm and ease my wife because the fear of neglecting our baby was getting to her. "What if she needs help and I don't help her?" my wife cried painfully as we sat at the parking lot outside the doctors office. I was pissed off. Fear sells, and it sells really good. But truth is more powerful than fear, and "perfect love casts out fear." -St. John.
The Necessity of Medication - The argument for the use of medication, essentially, is that supposedly it will lessen the pain of the mother during childbirth by numbing her out. There's a number of problems with this. One is that if the mother is numbed out then she can't feel her contractions, meaning, she won't know when to push. This creates another problem, which our doctor tried to enforce on my wife (but failed to because I was there). By saying she needs to just keep pushing and pushing and pushing the doctor is actually going against the natural rhythm of the human body. This is terribly wrong. The mother should only push during contractions, and when she's not contracting she should take a break to catch her breath and gather herself again. During contraction is when the baby is making its descent out the womb. Naturally this would be the right time to help the baby out by gently pushing to the point of comfort. But if the baby paused from its descent -- and the mother just keeps pushing -- then the mother is simply exhausting herself without making any real progress. Not only will this prolong the pregnancy and exhaust the mother physically and emotionally while significantly increasing her labor pains, but it's actually harmful for the baby to be forced out of the womb. The baby must be eased out with controlled pushing. This is another reason why taking breaks in between contractions is essential. Constantly pushing hard without any rhyme or reason will make it extremely difficult for the mother to control her pushing. The pain can become so excessive that it will most likely lead the mother into the attitude of "Just get it over with! Get it out of me!" This can have adverse effects on the mother-child relationship later on. Another reason why we refused taking medication is because of the harm it could cause simply by its dosage. In order for the medication to take effect it has to be received in its proper dosage based on the size of the person taking it. Would you give a newborn baby the same dosage of medication that you would give to an adult woman? Of course not. And yet whatever the mother receives in her bloodstream goes directly into her womb and into the baby. The doctors will say, "There are no ill effects whatsoever." But they don't know that for sure. Again, the medical field in general likes to talk in absolutes, but science works on estimations. Common sense tells me if it's dangerous for a newborn baby to drink too much milk, then it's dangerous for a newborn baby to have too much medication. Well, how much is too much? Doctors don't know. So they'll just say, "There are no ill effects whatsoever." My wife was unmedicated and our baby is lively, attentive, and completely healthy. Since day one she was able to lift her neck during tummy time. This is a baby milestone that happens generally between 2 to 6 months for medicated children. Our baby did it on her own since Day 1. Does using medication during labor stunt a child's growth? Does it impair their development? People can do their own research, but no doctor will experiment on our children.
The Necessity of Inducing Labor - This problem is similar to the ones previously mentioned. The reason our doctors kept pestering us to have induced labor is because they believe the baby needs their "help" to leave the womb. But baby's have been leaving their mother's womb on their own since the beginning of time. A woman's body is built for birthing. This is part of the natural order of life. Forcing my wife to have induced labor felt more like a necessity for the doctors than for us because it seems they wanted our baby to just "get it over with." They want to control the pace of the pregnancy rather than to let nature take its course. This makes sense considering the fact that they were so rude and abrasive during our visits. It's as if they were rushing us to just "get it over with." It wasn't a sacred process to them. There was nothing divine about the miracle happening in my wife's womb. I may be wrong, but it seems to me that we were just another client to them, and our baby was just another paycheck. And the more they can squeeze out of us the better it is for them. Obviously we declined having induced labor. You can imagine how irritated and impatient this made our doctors. But that's fine. Our baby came into the world at God's time.
The Necessity of a C-Section - Like I mentioned in my previous post, by the time our doctor offered us this solution we were already under so much pressure since my wife was having steady and intense contractions while her dilation stayed the same at 9 cm. Our doctor said he will consider this a complication if she doesn't reach 10 cm in the next few hours. He also said that the only option available for us by then is a c-section. Once again, he was completely wrong. My wife was able to give birth naturally a few hours afterwards. According to the doctor, she was only 9.5 cm dilated but he was willing to make adjustments so the baby can get through. Obviously, there was no way for me to prove whether my wife was 9.5 cm or 10 cm dilated, so we had to take his word for it. Either way, no c-section was necessary whatsoever. The lead up to this end point was a delicate balance between resilience and openmindedness. Honestly, I was open to the idea of a c-section if we've done all we could do naturally and it still wasn't enough. But sure enough, as we practiced the principles we learned in our Bradley Birthing Class, which, in this case, was simply to wait patiently as the Natural Alignment Plateu took its course and to be an attentive husband to my laboring wife -- and to not give up hope -- then sure enough, our baby came in at the right time. But this kind of support, encouragement, and guidance we never received from our own doctors. They would rather cut my wife open first and get paid extra rather than to simply let nature take its course. Ridiculous. Isn't the first rule of becoming a doctor to honor the Hippocratic Oath? First, do no harm.
So, these are the 5 things our doctors absolutely got wrong -- and never apologized for.
You can be sure my wife and I won't be asking for their help in the future. Possibly, for the one doctor that was kind and considerate towards us we may be open to it, but for the other two -- forget about it.
I'd like to make an additional point here: I'm not against doctors.
The Bradley Birthing Method was discovered by a doctor: Dr. Robert Bradley.
Natural birthing isn't about science v nature.
Rather, it's good science v bad science.
Good scientific research supports the process and results of natural birthing. I found it to be the safest, fastest, and healthiest way for a mother to give birth -- and my wife agrees. Our baby is proof of that.
Why interfere with the natural order of things?
People who like to interfere with the natural order of things usually like to play God -- and history tells us this always backfires.
There's only One God, and Mother Nature agrees with Him.
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