However, most Americans still want abortion to remain legal.

In writing about women and spirituality I’ve not squared off with the important issue of abortion.  I’m friends with women who are pro-choice and pro-life.  As in the gun rights issue, it is the caricatures in media coverage that distorts the women behind the platforms.  I’ve noticed how easily both of us fail to understand the robust arguments for the other side.

For instance it’s neither accurate or fair to believe that all pro-choice advocates are pro-woman and anti-baby, nor is it accurate to assume all pro-life advocates are pro-baby and anti-woman. In this post I want to see what we can learn from each other without the mud-slinging.

Our recent book, Coffee Shop Conversations: Making the Most of Spiritual Small Talk, begins with the Rules of Loving Discourse.  I’d like to practice these with you as we  discuss abortion. Let’s see if we can get into the other side’s shoes, listen to valid arguments and concerns all the while discovering what we actually believe about life, womanhood, family, sex and death.

The Grey Area

It seems only fair to begin by admitting there are areas where the decision to terminate a fetus’ life is not black and white, where the mother and the baby’s life are in danger.

Our local paper syndicated Nicholas Kristof’s coverage in the New York Times of Sister Margaret McBride’s recent excommunication, a senior administrator at St. Joseph’s Hospital in Phoenix. The charge: McBride’s assent to the termination of an 11-week old fetus carried by a 27-year-old mother.  This mother of four suffered from pulmonary hypertension that created a high enough probability that the strain of a continuing pregnancy would likely kill her and her baby.  The balance of mother and child’s life hung suspended at this Catholic hospital, needing permission from someone like Sister Margaret. To refuse to act would have likely destroyed both mother and child.

The Bishop of Phoenix, Thomas Olmsted, ruled that “the mother’s life cannot be preferred over the child’s,” and excommunicated McBride.   Read the full story at NPR.

Then What?

Often my pro-life friends are quick to assume that if abortion were made illegal, the world would be a better place.

But, consider for a moment what would follow.  What laws would pro-life advocates want enforced? What specific policy would we implement against doctors who perform abortions when they are illegal? Would we charge them with first degree murder?  What crime should a woman be charged with for seeking an abortion?

If women are victims of abortion, how can we penalize them? Doesn’t this assault a woman’s volition, her autonomy, her maturity? Should penalties for women be increased if they seek more than one abortion? For mothers who seek abortions, do we incarcerate them and remove them from their families to prevent further abortions? Do we penalize then with a fine? with community service?

Are we truly ready to call all women who seek abortions murderers? And what about the systems, the ethics committees, the counselors and family members, the boyfriends and husbands who play a part in these abortions? Should they also be charged with murder? If abortion becomes illegal do we call McBride an accomplice to a murder?

For more questions and a rigorous development of the “then what?” see Dan’s Hole in the Wall: Getting Political for a Moment“)

Listening to Pro-Choice

I recently came across a blog where Hugo Schwyzer, professor, Episcopal youth minister, husband and father explains that his experience of watching his second daughter born only confirmed him more resolutely into the pro-choice camp (read at “Pregnant Woman, Personhood and Some Paternal Reflections“).

Confused and interested I read on.   He notices that once a woman becomes pregnant people’s perception of her value splits into two categories.

One, her value as a woman.

Two, her value as a life-giving agent to sustain, carry, feed, shelter this growing life inside.  A perfect way to illustrate this duality is how commonly people feel free to touch a pregnant woman’s belly.  I experienced this as well. People I knew only casually slid their hands all around my abdomen, without seeming to realize this was my skin, my nerves they touched. They weren’t really touching Finn, they were touching me.

Schwyzer notes that a growing life inside a woman, for all its excitement and beauty, does not trump a woman’s subject-hood.  In other words, the life of the baby should not erase the woman’s life. He writes,

” To see my daughter born was one of the great experiences of my life. But I never lost sight of the reality that my wife was more than a vessel to carry this new and splendid creature. My wife’s rights didn’t diminish with conception and with each passing week of gestation. I knew a longed-for and desperately wanted new life grew inside of her, but the emphasis was always as much on “inside of her” as on the “new life.” And I assure you that my wonder at the miracle of life is matched, and even surpassed, by the wonder at what a woman’s body can do if that woman chooses to make it happen.”

In thinking about this I both agree and disagree.  I agree that a woman’s personhood is intact, even while pregnant. However, I think Schwyzer has overblown the choice woman have.

You cannot be pregnant without becoming a vessel.  The fact that a woman’s life (food, energy, etc) serves her fetus is not a choice. You cannot bear a child and also refuse to become a vessel.  Pregnancy means our body will  serve this child’s growing needs, you cannot be pregnant without performing this service.  And, in my case, gain lots of extra weight, feel sore, require frequent bathroom visits and feel achy while you try to do normal activities.  Pregnancy can feel like an invasion. To call this a choice is in my mind mistaken.

A better verb is not choosing, but entering or enduring or accepting.  I would not call the pregnancy a choice as much as something that happens to women after sex… and there’s no way for a woman to exit the pregnancy without having something else happen to her, be it a miscarriage or an abortion.

As much as I dislike the picture of woman as passive, accepting pregnancy does not have the texture of other intentional decisions I’ve made in my life.  Waiting and watching my body change wasn’t the same as choosing what major I wanted, who to marry, what flowers to plant, when or how to have sex.

Pregnancy feels more like something is happening to me, like a ride I stepped on, a plane I boarded.   Pregnancy felt like something was being acted within me.  And to accept this vessel-becoming experience, to become a tabernacle of new life involved my investment and daily sacrifice (read more about my pregnancy experience “New Body“).

Perhaps what Schwyzer means is that woman’s choice to accept pregnancy should not obliterate their personhood in the process. I agree, however, I found pregnancy could enhance the personal dignity of my womanhood.

Outlawing Pain

Schwyzer’s main point is that since pregnancy and delivery (whether vaginally or caesarean) hurts, forcing a woman to go through this painful (and he admits, worthy) process is horrific. He writes,  “We [he and his wife] both shudder, more than ever now, at the thought of compelling a woman to go through this process against her will.”

He believes the woman must choose this pain and that the child must be wanted.

He writes about abortion doctor’s work as ministry. He talks about abortions as a time for doctors to trust that women know what is best for their own bodies and the lives of their children.

I read that and think, wait, I believe in women, too. And I trust women.  Are some feminists hearing pro-lifers as people who do not trust women?

Challenge to Pro-Choice Advocates

Speaking as a woman who has endured labor without any pain medication I will agree with Schwyzer. Yes, it does hurt.

The litany of sacrifices on the part of the mother (birthing hurts, pregnancy is inconvenient, sleep-deprivation is unpleasant and disorienting and push-me-to-tears frustrating, the stitches after my second degree tear throb for days, the physical deprivation of no sex for weeks and weeks pushing me to wonder more than once, “Why, oh WHY didn’t God split up biological baby-care duties a bit more evenly? I mean he could at least have given men breasts so my poor ol’ body could heal with decent night’s rests instead of healing on 3 hours here and there snatched in between feedings?!!!”) is not to be minimized.

No way, Jose.

The fact that children are painful remains a point most pro-life advocates fail to really park on. The movie Juno, does a good job of showing part of the pain. I felt my insides quiver with participatory suffering when I watched Juno weep after she had given birth, her boyfriend crawling into bed next to her, his muddy running cleats on the hospital bed (an apt metaphor for the messiness of relationships, sex and children).

However, pro-choice advocates forget that as God created sex, one aspect (others being recreation and unity) is the potential for children.  I don’t think you can divorce sex from children, not without damaging both parties.

Perhaps pro-choice advocates feel the intensity of the pain and the amount of time pregnancy requires warrants the state remaining mum on the subject and letting a woman choose.

I disagree.

The law enforces painful things everyday, like the draft for military service, a requirement that isn’t anything as natural as the sex-baby connection.   The state enforces taxes (a painful process to say the least) for your entire life without an opt-out.   I’m not saying having a baby is the same as being drafted or paying taxes, but it does serve to prove that the state frequently requires it’s citizens to undergo pain (and in the case of the draft, to face death) without asking permission. Maybe we don’t like that the state has this power, we might even petition against it or think it unfair. But we certainly allow it this right, as our government.

So I don’t think the charge that pregnancy and birth (and child-rearing) is painful holds.

I have an inkling that woman would more easily undergo nine months of painful “invasion” of a fetus if pregnancy’s responsibilities ended there.  It’s the life of a person for years and years after the birth that has our adrenalin pumping with fearful anticipation. Will I be able to handle a child?

When I compare the glorious portability and minimal responsibility of carrying Finn as a fetus compared with caring for him as a baby, the pregnancy part was a breeze.

During pregnancy I slept long and well. I easily coordinated elaborate outfits with accessories and make-up.  I worked out or spend hours reading and writing without leaking milk.  Then I had a baby.

It’s not merely the pregnancy that women must count as a cost, it’s the life after the birth.

I believe more women would refuse an abortion if they could serve nine months and be done with it.  It’s not the pain of the nine months; it is the idea of a life to be responsible for, to be guilty about, to wonder as to the painful, happy, fruitful or fruitless future of your offspring.

Cleaning the Slate?

Perhaps the single most provocative offering of abortion is a promise that abortion can help you wipe the slate clean. This is an offer too tempting to refuse when you are faced with life as you know it ending (how will you raise a teenager in this world?) or facing the idea that through the “out” of adoption someone else will raise your teenager in this world (To better understand a woman’s feelings  before terminating her pregnancy read an example at “Choosing Not to Keep the Baby” note the comments – most striking to me is how no friends rallied behind this young women to help her raise her unplanned child – this a problem I’ve heard of time and again with the friends I know who have walked into abortion clinics by themselves… it is at root a problem with all of us – How many of you have helped an unwed mother raise an unwanted child? – understanding how we all play a part in abortion deserves another post).

But back to the idea that pain should not be demanded out of women unless they choose it, I don’t see the precedent in any other area. Avoiding our own pain has never been an adequate reason to extinguish another life.  As the Dread Pirate Roberts of The Princess Bride says, “Life is pain, your highness. Anyone who says otherwise is selling something.”

We know the laws of nature require pain if we choose to disregard them. If we choose to run a race, we will face the pain of conditioning. If we choose to love we face the pain of vulnerability, rejection, fragility and death. If we choose to make love when we’re not ready in some (even small) capacity to become a vessel for a child, then we face the pain of dashed plans, the inconvenience and pain of either a baby or an abortion.

Abortion and Sin

Living east of Eden, sin is it’s own punishment.

So we must ask yourselves, is abortion sin? Let’s simply define sin as missing the mark or twisting the good.

If abortion is sin, I’m less concerned with making abortion illegal.

If abortion is missing the mark I believe the costs of a woman enduring an abortion provides a strong enough punishment without heaping on a murder charge, silence out of shame and isolation to boot.

It seems most likely, from my limited experience with two pregnancies, that women know they are taking away life or a form of life when they terminate their pregnancies. I’m not saying they admit it, though some do (see Naomi Wolf’s “Our Bodies, Our Souls“)

My concern is that pro-choice advocates remain intent upon driving a wedge between procreation and sex. I don’t think this is appropriately human, nor that God created our bodies and souls to permanently cleave sex away from procreation.

Conundrum

It seems to me that the difference between terminating an eleven week old fetus and terminating a thirty week old fetus is significant and worth thinking about.   I’ve heard pro-life advocates say there is no difference in value.

I do not intend to minimize the grief of losing a child at any age (read my own grief over the loss of our six week old fetus here). However, I have an intuitive sense after losing a six week old fetus and facing the possibility of losing a week old baby (read here) that you feel like you’re losing more with a week old baby.

Now here is where pro-choice advocates need to tread carefully. Does the intuition that a baby at one week is more valuable than a fetus at 6 weeks find valid justification? I mean do my intuitions match reality, do they find justification in Scripture, in natural law, in God’s law?  Are there reasons to think of one as more valuable than another?  Is if fair to fault a smaller, less developed form of human life as less valuable than a bigger, more developed form? Is it merely because a baby looks more like a baby as it gets older that I feel the loss greater?

Now, here’s the strange conundrum, the dependency of a one week old baby feels greater, more invasive, more sobering and commanding than the dependency of a five week old fetus.  But we protect the life of a baby once it’s outside the womb, no matter how inconvenient, painful, difficult that life might be to mother, to father, to society.

Thoughts? Concerns? Ideas?

This idea has been unpopular for hundreds (maybe even thousands) of years.  That men need women isn’t very popular in the parenting philosophy that says little boys can be ruined by their mothers. Don’t want to be “overclose” right?  Just think about it this way, is it positive or negative to call a girl  “Daddy’s Little Girl”?

Okay, now what if you call a boy  “Momma’s Boy”?

I particularly enjoyed our Question and Answer time with the students.  Such great questions that have helped me think more.

One moment in the talk we were discussing the different ways men and women approach the world given the simple difference of their bodies. Due to my body’s shape, capabilities, size, strength I will walk down the street, shop, smile and speak differently than a man.

I told the audience that because we have a two month old baby my mind is constantly considering when I will be needed to nurse Finn, even while I’m juggling the next point in my talk and the powerpoint.

The men looked at Dale with curiosity when I said, “Dale isn’t thinking about any of that!”

“Nope!” he responded with a smile. The audience burst into laughter.

“But that is the challenge of being a woman,” I said, after they all quieted. “I have to press into God to ask him to show me the privilege and beauty of having a body that must be interrupted in a speaking event to feed my son.”

The women stared at me intently. Their eyes made me want to explore this privilege here with you.

I carried Finn onstage in my *Lille Baby when I spoke alongside Dale. The audience numbered about 2000, which is enough to stream adrenalin through my body.

But I wanted to “wear” Finn for several reasons.

1-      I believe our talks benefit from me at Dale’s side and I do not want to give up on this benefit for our non-profit, but most significantly for our audiences, simply because we have a baby.

2-      The absence of children from most places of business, religion, politics feels unnatural and in the end harmful to me. Have you noticed that we put children away?  We do not see Senators or CEOs or models or professors with their baby WHILE WORKING, at least not very often.  I’m reminded of a wonderful woman, Prime Minister of Pakistan, Benazier Bhutto, who raised three children as she shepherded her country.  From Claudia Preifus’ article in the New York Times, May 13, 1994,

“In all the world there cannot be another plane quite like the official jet of Bhutto. The front section is a kind of office-cum-nursery, jammed with toys, briefcases, newspapers, nannies and Bhutto’s children, Bilawal, 5, Bakhtawar, 4, and Asifa, 1.  In the main cabin, political advisors, security commandos and generals are keeping an eye on the Prime Minister they cautiously support.

“Hello gentlemen . . . Hello, babies,” Bhutto calls as she enters the plane.  It is both jarring and interesting to see soldiers saluting a woman with children on her lap.”

Children were permitted alongside this woman even as she accessed places of power.

3-      Finn is at an age where he needs me, for food, for hydration, for warmth, for shelter, for affection.  He also needs his father for all of these (except the food/hydration).  To hold my son on my body while I speak indicates, I hope, my willingness to meet his needs even while others may not understand. In planning to babywear Finn, the chapel coordinator (a female student) was surprised but enthusiastic. “I don’t think we’ve ever had a speaker carry a baby on stage,” she said.  That increased my nervousness, but made me all the more determined.

4-      Even if it is easier to have someone watch Finn, so I can focus on my work, the task of inviting Finn’s distraction while attempting to speak is an example Dale and I could not pass up. We want the women and men in the audience (many future mothers and fathers) to consider the example of inviting a child into your work, into the public sphere. Because if more women were permitted, even encouraged to invite their children to work, the inequalities between men and women would begin to seriously evaporate.  It is not marriage that hinders women from producing and enjoying careers, it is the insistence that children cannot be a part of real work, real life, real business. That is a myth I would like to challenge, in the few years and few opportunities I’m given.  Babies are part of real life, they are as real as our own existence, and, as my wise cousin once said in response to my fears that Finn would wake up and interrupt,

“You should be fine, and if he does wake up and make noise, that is just part of real life!  So you are really being real about your life as a mom.”

Bravo!

5-      I do not see women and children side-lined in God’s program in Scripture. Instead, I see God excited about inviting children near him, even when the all-business agenda of his followers begged to differ.  As Jesus said, “Permit the little children to come to me.”  I find it strange that the founder of Christianity was so pro- children (even with their interruptions) but his followers are intent on assigning children to the nursery during our serious Sunday morning programmes.

In a wonderful new book celebrating Men and Women’s difference, Alice von Hildebrand writes,

“Not only are man and woman made for each other, not only do their complement each other, but, above all, their differences (which are not limited to the biological sphere) enable them to be partners with God Himself in creating new human persons” (p. 4 Man and Woman: a Divine Invention).

This mutual interdependence is not something easy to explain or to live.  In a conversation with a Christian feminist last week, she suggested that true interdependence, making room for me to depend on you, while you make room to depend on me, cannot happen unless we are first independent.

I’m curious about what you think. 

Why do men and women find it so difficult to depend on each other?

Must we first learn independence to interdepend?

*For a wonderful site on all the benefits and styles of baby-wearing, as well as the many options of baby-wearing carriers see my cousin’s site: www.frogmama.com

Why couldn’t my baby breathe? Why wasn’t he thriving?

I latched on to a verse in Psalm 13:5, “But I trust your unfailing love.”  I said that to myself over and over as I fell asleep when thoughts and fears crowded my mind. I knew that even if I were to lose Finn, I would have God’s love for me. I couldn’t trust a clear diagnosis to the doctors,  I couldn’t expect smooth, quick release, I couldn’t even depend on Finn making it out okay or even alive, but I could expect God to love me, regardless of what I feared, gained or lost.

Finn was a bright spot to me, he was always eager to eat; he continued to gain weight.  Wondering and waiting made each feeding time precious.

I got my hopes up so high that he would only need 48 hours of antibiotics that I scheduled his circumcision and held his hands and sang to him during the procedure.  But that night his inflammation count went up. He even had to go back on oxygen. My hopes were crushed. I cried so hard. I felt so empty walking to my hospital room time after time with my arms empty, without a baby to share the room with, to talk to and rejoice over with Dale.

There were just enough tests confirming that he had an inflammation area in one of his lungs. Doctors and nurses alternately called it meconium aspiration (inhaling some of the meconium from birth which naturally would inflame a lung) or pneumonia.  Perhaps because of our high altitude combined with his size and need for large, full capacity lungs, he needed breathing help.  Regardless it was eleven days before we finally got to take him home, on oxygen.

During that time I recorded my thoughts on my iPod shuffle because my carpal tunnel got quite a lot worse after my delivery (probably due to all those IV fluids).  I listed things I didn’t want to forget like how it feels to hold your son when he’s connected to five different wires, looking at the flowers my friends brought to me, especially those lilies that made my hospital room smell like a garden instead of a hospital, the bubble baths where I’d try to wait and relax before the next feeding when I could see my baby Finn, the feeling that I felt every time I stood like my bottom would fall out from under me, the hundreds of emails that inundated me with the conviction that my friends understood and strangers  prayed for us.

I will never forget the deep loneliness of sleeping by myself.  Dale went home each evening around 10pm to tend to our three Welsh Corgis and get a good night’s rest. My body ached to be with him, I felt so solitary in that hospital bed.  Such an irony that the fruit of our intimacy would produce this kind of separation between me and Dale, between me and my son. I would state out loud into the darkness, “I will trust your unfailing love.” Knowing God cared for me more than I could care for Finn, knowing that I could learn a lesson of trust from my son who was unbelievable trusting of me, helped me get through those long nights and days.

By the evening of March 3^rd, I was strong enough to walk into the Nursery and see Finn, finally.

The first time, I felt both shy and proud, “Hi,” I told the nurse who opened the locked door, “I’m the mom of baby Finn.” It was the first time I identified myself as the mother of my son.  It was strange to think the nurses knew Finn more than they knew me.

In the weeks following that would change. I met so many nurses, many who loved and cared for my son beautifully. Even though I would break down several times, I learned a lot of tips from them.  It was still very hard, though. I still remember how I’d try not to think how I couldn’t get to my son unless I was allowed to pass through a locked door. Yes, I know it was for his protection, but it still felt like another level of distance between us.

The painfulness was broken by friends who came by to photograph Finn and us, by house church that graciously decided to meet at the hospital, by the flowers that friends sent, by the darling onesie my mom had hand embroidered for Finn, “freshly hatched” it read. I couldn’t wait to put it on him.

I remember one particularly hard night when the nurses had to change his IV from his hand and into his head.  The one in his hand was not longer strong enough. They kept sticking him, but were unable to get a vein.  It was unbearable to be asked to leave, though I longed to stay and sing and stroke his arms and comfort him while they prodded.

I was making them nervous, they said. So I trudged back to my hospital room and cried and cried. It was over an hour later when they finally called and told me they had got the IV in. I couldn’t bear to think of him crying and hurting, alone, in that room.

Now, holding him against my chest in the Moby wrap, listening to his strong lungs breath in and out and his little chubby legs kick against my stomach, I can’t hold my tears back.

It was such a hard time, only seeing him when he was hungry, trying to stretch out the nursing times as long as I could to maximize our time together. Choking back tears as I sang “Like a River Glorious” over and over to him as I cried looking at the needles in his arm, the monitors taped all over him.  Looking at the hospital blanket that said, “Hospital Property” expressed the frustration in my heart perfectly. I didn’t feel like Finn belonged to me anymore. I saw his perfect arms that the nurses had all the rights to pierce and felt so so helpless.

I was just the feeder, I woke up whenever I could to be with him.  But, I couldn’t make the decisions for him because I didn’t know enough.

Things I never want to forget:

-          Holding Finn the 2^nd night when I wasn’t allowed to feed him because they put him on formula until my milk came in (which it did Friday evening, with a vengeance).

-          The tape around his temples holding his oxygen in, making red rings of abrasion on his sensitive skin.

-          Wishing I could pull the tube out of his stomach so he wouldn’t have to struggle.

-          The satisfaction of knowing I could breast-feed him. Wanting to keep that joyfulness even when I brought him home.

-          Praying God would give me the strength, again and again asking him to show me that his love was unfailing.

-          Amazement at how good my body looked even one day later.

-         Watching in deep fear as Finn underwent a cardiogram, fearing his heart was damaged and insufficient to sustain him. 

-         Long bubble baths, crying and listening to my labor mix “Strength” and “Peace.

-          Carrying my boppy and small, inflatable donut pillow (for my backside) and shuffling in my slippers every three hours to see my son.

-          How wonderful it felt to help clean up the adhesive when we took Finn’s IV out of his head.

-          Getting the go ahead to dress him for the first time, over 10 days after he was born.

It was a mighty fine day when the doctors and nurses told me Finn passed all his NICU tests (room-air challenge, car seat challenge, etc), and that we could keep him in my room for one night. I couldn’t stop smiling and bounding around to get everything ready for his arrival.

Dale stayed that night with both of us, too. He called it our slumber party.  It was delightful to wheel him into my room and put HIS clothes on him.  Even though he was still on oxygen (we took him home on it) I thought he looked like a million bucks!

Well, I need to stop writing, my tears are flowing on Finn’s head and waking him up as he sleeps in the Moby.  I think I’ll take us both outside to get another load of laundry.

I didn’t know it at the time, but one month after Finn’s birth I would experience several complications and have to be re-admitted to the hospital for a D and C, a tiny bit of retained placenta (5 mm) needed removing.

Now, over two months after Finn’s birth, with a 15 lb baby and my own body finally beginning to feel better, I can sigh and be grateful to God for seeing us through. Little things feel rather miraculous, like walking through snow (in MAY!)  to do another load of this little guy’s laundry with Finn sleeping in the Moby.  I want to close this 10 part series with the words of David in Psalm 13:5-6

“But I trust in your unfailing love; my heart rejoices in your salvation. I will sing the LORD’s praise,  for he has been good to me.”

Selah

SHE had THAT baby?!  Finn outweighed all the babies in the Nursery by at least double their weight. One pair of twins together still weighed less than he did.

I would come to believe his size and weight in the days to come.  While the hospital’s nursing staff for babies took Finn’s measurements, I leaned back and rested a bit, listening to Dale shout out length and head size.  He was 21 ¾ inches long and had a 15 inch head.

Dr. Leslie told me it was time to push my placenta out, and I told her she would have to help me. My pushing capacity was depleted.  So she helped a lot, more than I even remember.  What I do remember was the slight massage/pushing the nurse did on my collapsed stomach and Dale commenting on the amount of blood that came out of me.

*** Warning Real Life Details ***

The blood filled a plastic tub, along with my placenta that Dr. Leslie held up to show me and Dale. She showed us where Finn had lived, how his umbilical cord had been attached.  My placenta was enormous. Dale was so fascinated he even took a picture (I’ll spare you, but we found it awfully amazing) to remember how large it was.  For those interested it was about the size of a large cereal box, and super thick. That’s partly the cause for the events that immediately followed.

***

I lost about a liter of blood in that moment.  Only a few minutes later, after Leslie had sewed me up (I only felt a few pricks, pretty good considering I had a 2^nd degree tear), I remember feeling very very thick, like the air around me had been injected with cotton. I turned to the nurse beside me.

“I’m having trouble breathing,” I gasped out.  She quickly put an oxygen mask over my face.  I felt like someone had put a boulder on my chest.

Instantly, there were about five nurses around me.  In that moment hospital intervention seemed like a really good idea.  They put a (painful) IV into my arm.  In went two more injections, one pitocin to make my uterus contract, the other I’ve forgotten.  As the nurse told me I was getting some pitocin, I almost said,

“Wait, no, I don’t want any drugs! Pitocin will make my contractions stronger,” before I realized I wasn’t in labor anymore. Realizing Finn was out, I laid back and relaxed.

I remember hearing Dale hold baby Finn, walking him around the room, telling him I was going to be okay. I even smiled knowing Finn was in good hands, thankful that I had a husband by my side as my complications surged.  He held Finn for almost an hour. To hear Dale talking to Finn, to hear him happy, to know Finn was safe and healthy I didn’t even care what happened to me. Hearing Dale tell me he thought Finn was cute (MUCH cuter than the 3-D sonogram had indicated) and so nice and symmetrical made me feel wonderful.

For those next 20 minutes, I was even more grateful that we had decided to birth Finn in the hospital.  Later one nurse would tell me, “You gave us a scare!”

But, I felt so serene in that moment, not afraid I was going to die, very trusting that the nurses knew what they were doing.  One nurse would lecture me later that I was a perfect example of why they insist on an IV port upon hospital admittance.

“I’m glad I didn’t let you do that port!” I emphasized again, “If I had a port in my arm I would not have been able to enjoy my husband’s support.” I went on to explain Dale’s vasovagal response.  The nurse walked around the counter where she had been standing and gave me a big hug.

“I hadn’t thought about it like that before,” she admitted.

After a long afternoon of waiting for some food, I got to nurse Finn.  He took a few minutes to figure out what to do, but when he latched on I was so proud of him.  The first time he sucked I was blown away by how strange it felt for such a little person to have such a strong tug.  After hearing how hard nursing was for friends I expected it to be a lot harder. It wasn’t, just amazing and surprisingly not painful.

Finn already felt ENORMOUS to me, like he had skipped the infant stage. He did not seem helpless or weak.  Whereas I felt both of those. He nursed for about an hour.

Because of my weakened state (not just the labor, but now a liter of blood missing), Dale and I decided to put Finn in the nursery for the evening.  They brought him to me for his feedings. At midnight he nursed well, as I learned the football hold and how to nurse him in bed.  My nurse, B, gave me such a helpful tool, “Nursing should feel like a tug, not a pinch.”  That was the number one best tip I got. It took me about 10 minutes to get him latched on, but once he did, he ate really well. Such a rewarding experience.

*** Warning: Real Life Details ***

Around midnight I had to prove that I did not need a catheter by peeing on my own. I’ve got to admit that a day of labor, even only 6 hours, had done a number on my bathroom skills. I couldn’t believe how swollen and out of control my own body felt. It was like I had forgotten how to pee. I tried to remember what I had read in one of my birthing books, A Girlfriend’s Guide to Pregnancy, “Your body will go back to normal, it just will take time.”

They did a sonogram-like test to verify that yes, I had enough of a full bladder to pee and since my uterus was having a slightly hard time contracting down the nurses who watched me that evening, B and J, insisted on my proving that I could empty my own bladder.  They wanted my bladder as small as possible to make room for my uterus.

Waiting, sitting on the toilet, was the longest I had sat up since delivering Finn. I slowly felt all my energy leaking out of my body. I knew I was about to black out and thinking how this would REALLY prove I needed a catheter, I used the last bit of strength to ask for my Recharge (a natural version of Gatorade).

Dale came running and as I sucked in the cool grape liquid I felt focus returning to my body. It was like drinking liquid strength.  That helped me stand up and get back into bed (with their help).

Eventually, I tried again and with the help of some peppermint oil (did you know smelling it can induce the peeing urge?) I peed. Everyone hurrahed me and B and J were full of congratulations.  I felt like I had surmounted the final challenge.

Little did I know.

***

That was the last time I would really be focused on my own body as the number one priority.  I fed Finn again around 2:30am and we were so quiet and smooth about it that Dale didn’t even wake up.

At 5 am the following morning the head nurse technician in the Nursery woke me up to tell me that Finn had given the staff a scare that night.

The nursery had been quite crowded (something about the barometric pressure) and J, the nurse who had the bright idea of peppermint oil , had decided to hold Finn, instead of leaving him with the host of other babies in the nursery.

While J was holding him, she noticed his nostrils flare up. Finn seemed to be having trouble breathing so she called B (pictured here with me and Finn) over in concern as they watched his body turn blue. They rushed him into the Nursery and M (a nurse I would get to meet later and thank) put to use her years of high risk NICU training in a New York City hospital on Finn’s troubled little body.

She got him breathing again, they stabilized him, but not without the aid of a tube down his throat and an IV.  On hearing this news, I initially felt just enormous relief that we had put him in the nursery and that he had gotten the care he needed. What if he had turned blue while in our room and I and Dale too wiped out to notice?

But when I heard that they wanted to hold him for at least 48 more hours to start him on antibiotics, I felt my heart sink. In the morning Dale went to see him, and they had a tube down his throat in his stomach to pump any excess air out.  Finn was gagging  on the tube and did not like it one bit. Knowing now how chill of a baby he is (e.g. He didn’t cry during his circumcision), I know he must have been very uncomfortable.

In the days to come I would record in Voice Memos (my carpal tunnel had again flared up so that typing was making it worse) how difficult the days in the hospital became. I would stay to watch Finn as he moved through three IVs (one in his head), oxygen nodes for his nose, that tube down his throat, 48 hours on the Bili Bed, multiple tests, circumcision, unknown results, hopefulness that he’d be released and then feeling disappointed that he wouldn’t be. Another five days of antibiotics.

He seemed so strong, how could they still hold him as a sick baby?  It hurt to see his arms bruised by the IV, his chest tattooed with sticky strips monitoring his heart.

In the days following, I never went home. I couldn’t stand the thought of returning to my cabin and leaving Finn.  I’m so thankful the hospital had room for me to room-in those days. The times I got with him kept me focused on recovering myself and staying healthy enough to feed him. In one fun moment, he grabbed my hair and made us all smile.   Look at that strong arm!

Read Final Post “Unfailing Love”

But the different angle on my knees did the trick.  Linda would touch my shoulders a few times and say, “Relax your shoulders, put that energy down where it will help your baby.”  Afterward Dale said, I instantly dropped my shoulders and he could tell a visible difference in my pushing.

In that last hour of pushing I made up my mind that I, Jonalyn Grace Fincher, would push this baby out no matter what. I remember choosing to stop caring about the pain, about the damage to my body, to mentally overcome it by thinking, It doesn’t matter if I’m torn in two, this baby is coming out. I am pushing him out. I will push with everything I have.

I remember it as a very conscious choice, sort of swearing to my own hurt and not changing.

The strength multiplied in me when I heard Leslie say “GREAT pushing, okay one more!” and Linda (my doula) say, “You have the strength in your soul to do this, Jonalyn!” and especially when I heard Dale cheering with each series of pushes. He’d peer down in amazement at Finn’s black circle of hair growing bigger and then come up and grab my hand and leg cry out, “Go, go, go, go, go, go!” all the way through the contraction. I was so excited he had so much hair.

I felt like I was in the last 100 meters of a two mile track race and my favorite person, my best friend, my most loyal fan and confident coach was running alongside me, yelling, “Go, go, go, go, go!”

With his encouragement I could do this, I knew I could.  Dale kept leaning down to watching the progress. He was almost giddy with excitement so I dipped my empty ladle into his stream. I was thrilled he could be so involved.

“He’s coming, Jonalyn,” he cried out, “You’re almost there!” I felt like people had been saying that for an hour. And they had. Finn’s head was huge, 15 inches wide we’d later find out. I still can’t believe I pushed him out.

In the last moments, I felt like someone had lit me on fire, but I felt somewhat removed from the pain even as intense as it was.  Dr. Leslie would tell me in a post-pardum check-up that many women need the epidural to relax enough and push hard enough. The pain prevents many from pushing as hard as they need to.

I totally get that, now.

At this hospital, the epidural rate is 90%.  I feel proud to be in the 10%, not because I’m a glutton for punishment, but because I wanted to be fully present and awake to everything that was happening.  And I know what the epidural covers and I know why it’s a blessing, too.

Speaking with a nursing friend of mine after the birth she wrote me:

God was definitely at work in guiding your choices and protecting you and Finn through the pregnancy, labor and delivery.  I don’t know if you’ve thought about the fact that typically, if they had known that he was actually going to be so big, they would have scheduled a c-section.

Even if you said no thanks, that lingering doubt as to whether you could really push out such a big baby could have been a mental obstacle that could have prevented a vaginal delivery.  Also, had you chosen to have an epidural, there is a good chance you would not have had the control and awareness to be able to push out a large baby.  ALSO…if you had an epidural, Finn would have received some of the medication, thus depressing his breathing.

In light of some of complications with Finn’s breathing after the birth, I’m even more grateful I declined all medical interventions.

One of the hardest things about pushing is that you push so hard and make like an inch of progress, but when the contraction is over the uterus sucks the baby back like ½ inch. So it’s three steps forward, one back, over and over and over.

The moment I felt real hope flood my body was when I heard Dale say, “I can see his ear!”

I knew I had done it. There was no way I could pull that ear back up and in.  I didn’t feel instant relief, however.  I still had the additional work of pushing his enormous chest out.  That felt almost as hard as his head, though Dale said it looked a lot easier.

I felt like I had control, even in that moment.  I wouldn’t think about the next push, I would push and breathe deeply for the next push. Sometimes I would push when there was no contraction, I was so eager to get the baby out.

Then, all of a sudden his head was out and he gave one squeal, then was quiet.  Knowing he could cry meant he could come and lay on my chest.  Dale cut the ambilical cord and I sighed a high breath of joy.  Dr. Leslie went to town with the bulb syringe beginning to pump his lungs and nose clear of liquid.  I have pictures but I don’t want to overwhelm you with them.

My first sensation was not amazement at Finn, but relief that most the pain was over. I had done it, I had birthed a baby without pain meds. I had achieved my prayer and goal. God was good. I just lay there feeling so thankful.

Then, I wanted to see him.  They wanted to clean him up, but Linda stepped in beautifully and said, “Let her hold him.”  I temporarily forgot to be afraid of the next stage of pushing the placenta, finding out if I had torn and how badly, and having my belly massaged to contract the placenta as I held my baby boy.

Later, I found out that he was in my arms for no more than 3 minutes. It felt like 10 minutes. I looked at him and felt awash with relief that he was not harmed, no broken bones, and so much cuter than the ultrasound had made him appear.

“Look, Dale,” I said, “He doesn’t look like piglet!” We both smiled.

Then, they took him to make sure he hadn’t gulped down any meconium, to weigh and measure him.  I heard Dale shout out from the baby station.

“Nine pounds, twelve ounces!” he said, taking pictures excitedly. “Jonalyn can you believe it?”

Read Part 9 “Complications”

The growing pressure on Finn put so much force on my back I was quickly reminded me of how I had injured my tailbone 5 years ago. Finn’s head on my tailbone was growing in intensity similar to the debilitating cracking sensation I had felt years ago.

At that point someone offered a mirror so I can see what was going on. Surprising myself I wanted to see, Dale was saying he could see Finn’s head of hair. I thought, “I’ve got to be close!”

I’m glad I didn’t know I still had an hour left of pushing.

In the mirror, I looked surprisingly well, not scary, even somewhat normal, I thought.

I caught a glimpse of my face in the mirror as I began to bear down for another series of pushes and I remember thinking, “Wow, I look intense, but I still look like me.”

That helped. Knowing I still looked like Jonalyn, not some out of control, distorted, birthing monster—as the jokes and myths might have led me to believe–made me feel more dignified and grounded in reality.

In the mirror I saw Finn’s dark circle of hair deep inside me.  Even in the mirror he looked far away. Someone suggested I reach down to touch his head. I felt like even that stretch movement would be impossible given the intensity of the contractions. But I leaned to the side, stretched my hand down and brushed his head with my fingertips. It was too surreal for me to process that he was actually going to come out and be separate from me. I felt too exhausted to think more about it.

Another contraction, another need to push came on and I was just focusing. About this time I heard Dr. Ahlmeyer say to a nurse in a whisper which was unfortunately just loud enough for me to hear, “This is a really big head!” Another time later I heard her say, “We already have a 2 inch cone head happening here.”

My poor baby’s head, I thought for a brief moment.  But even given this news, I felt no urgency to push harder or faster. After having talked with friends I realize how grateful I am for that gift of patience and peacefulness.  I didn’t cannonball him out of my body which gave my body time to stretch.

Dr. Leslie Ahlmeyey began to prepare my perineum (skin around the vagina) for delivery. This picture is her table of instruments that I decided to NOT look at to keep myself focused on what I was doing.  You can see the baby bed in the background that Finn would soon fill.

She’s the only doctor we know of in Steamboat who actually stretches the perineum with oil to minimize and often prevent tearing. The only difficulty is that the stretching hurts like the dickens.  During that next hour I was enduring the pressure on my back, the pain of the contractions, the doubled pain of bearing down and moving Finn lower and further out and then the pain of having my perineum stretched.

A few times I said, “Ouch, ouch, ouch, Leslie that really, really hurts!”

“I know it does,” she would say empathetically and then calmly keep working.  As Dale described it, she kept tucking the edges of my perineum around Finn’s head to slowly, but surely widen the opening so his head could slide out.

Let me tell you it didn’t feel like sliding or slipping. It felt like Finn had sandpaper hair and that the walls of my delivery canal were coated with superglue.

When I opened my eyes, Leslie had donned a mask, which gave me more hope that she thought I would be able to push this baby out.  She also started to joke a little, “I’ve got your slip ‘n slide all ready,” she smiled.

Her calmness, Linda’s confidence, Dale’s assurance all kept me going to keep on pushing, keep on trying.  I’d pull my knees back and Linda and Dale would help hold my legs back with me.  Then when the contraction was over I’d release my legs and prop them up on the top of the bar, so I was in a V-shape.

During this time I’d get a minute or so to rest.  Dale took a picture of me during one of those breaks.

I’m smiling, which baffles me, and I remember thinking how glad I was that Dale was getting a picture of this moment.  Looking at that picture now (which I cannot post for modesty reasons), I remember how Dale leaned in toward me after he snapped it and told me, “You look beautiful.”

Looking at the picture, I believe him.

Read Part 8 “GO GO GO GO GO”

Near noon I began to think more often, This is getting a lot worse, I’m going to have to get an epidural. Then I’d think, NO! I don’t want an epidural.

I had this internal battle several times with myself. Each time the pain spiked, I would evaluate the idea of pain relief.  The few deep tissue massages I have received actually helped me with breathing into the pain.  Just like you have to breathe to get the muscle to release it’s tension, so did breathing help the contraction work for me and baby Finn.  The only big difference was I wasn’t sure how long this was going to go on and with a massage you can always holler out, “That’s too much!”

Later in the day, when it was over, Linda told me she was amazed that I never asked for an epidural.

“It wasn’t a real option.” I told her.  In my mind an epidural meant losing my mobility, introducing a large needle that would remove Dale from me and potentially slowling down my contractions. I didn’t want to risk any of these.

I wanted to endure the pain if it meant doing this all naturally and keeping Dale by my side.  So many details had to dovetail to make the process of birth all natural.  For that I thank God for answering my prayers- it was exactly (except for the meconium) as I hoped.

Knowing Dr. Leslie Ahlmeyer would be coming soon kept me going during the worst parts in the tub. It was a goal for me to look toward. I would endure until Leslie arrived. It reminds me now of the steps I took at 6 weeks pregnant to climb a 14,000 foot mountain in Colorado.  A seasoned climber of 14ers had told met to not think about getting to the top, but when the air seemed thin (and when I was battling my morning sickness, trying to keep my breakfast down) to think about taking no more than 40 steps. Then when that seemed like too much, to take 30 steps, then 20 steps. Then rest between.  Enduring the peaks of contractions before Leslie arrived was like climbing the last 1000 feet of that mountain. Here’s a picture of the last 200 feet on Gray’s Peak.  Though I was tired I was so excited to bring Finn and I to the top.

Time flew and Dr. Leslie seemed to arrive soon. Proserpine was advocating that I get out of the tub so Leslie could check me, but Leslie batted that idea away saying she could check my cervix in the tub. I was so wiped out that I could only feel gratitude that I would not have to move much and could stay warm.

She checked my cervix and announced, “I can’t feel a cervix.”

Her announcement made her and Linda exchange looks, but I was confused.  I thought this meant a new complication until Leslie asked me, “Do you feel like pushing?”

I thought, PUSHING?! No, I’m too busy getting this relaxation breathing down. I thought I had hours to go. I don’t want to push, that sounds scary and premature.  You can’t be serious…

All I said was, “Umm, not really.”

Linda then explained that no cervix actually meant I was fully dilated. I had made it to 10 cm in the tub. Transition was over, time to get out and get on the bed and begin pushing.

I was feeling giddy with amazement that I had dilated so far, so fast. It was about noon at this time. I had been in active labor for 4 hours and moved to 10 cm. This was not what I expected, it wasn’t what Dale expected either. I wasn’t sure I was ready to push but here we go.

Linda and Dale helped me to the bed.  It was 12:30pm.  I was dripping wet and totally confused about how to position myself for this next stage.

Pushing didn’t feel right. To start with, each time I pushed it felt like the pain increased.

How could I push myself to enter more pain instead of simply breathing through it?

Someone, I think it was Linda, said that instead of breathing with the contractions, I should try to push. But pushing did not help me stabilize myself with the pain like the breathing had.  This surprised me. I had heard so many women tell me that pushing was a relief, I was bewildered that I had no desire to push.

I felt like all the positions were wrong. I tried yoga “cat” and squatting and pulling on Linda’s scarf that was attached to the birthing bar (where women usually hold onto with their hands)…

Every position felt unusually awkward.

The bed felt awkward.

The light streaming in the room felt prematurely celebratory. It was lunchtime and I was being asked to push and I had no idea how to do this.

Proserpine had put a bar meant for gripping with your hands. At first I gripped it, not sure what to do with this arc above my head on the bed (see picture).

Then, I decided to recline back and as I waited for the contractions to come, I put my feet up on it and bore down. That gave way to me gripping the back of my knees and pulling my own legs back to push.

I’m so glad I didn’t know then what I know now, that the baby was 9 lbs 12 ounces.

Here’s the rub, the harder I pushed the more the pressure increased on everything between my legs.  When I held my breath I felt like I was no longer filling the pain with oxygen, diluting it with intentional breathing. Instead I hurt worse as I held my breath and pushed. The pain felt like it was taking over me.  Holding my breath felt like a bad idea.

Every time I pushed the pain increased.  Later Dr. Leslie would explain to me that this is why an epidural can be such a good idea for women, it allows them to relax and push harder when the pain would hold them back from giving their all.

Pushing was like willing myself to enter a room where someone was going to pound my thumbs with a hammer. No, it was like hammering my own thumbs with a hammer because I was the causal agent of hurting myself.  Pushing required more courage than I’ve ever had to spend.

Each pull back on my legs back and then push down with my stomach muscles destroyed any hope of breaks between contractions. The pressure of Finn’s head stayed steady even when the contractions were gone.  In fact the pain of his head moving into the birthing canal made the contraction pain pale in contrast to what I was creating now.

At first it was all I could do to push once or twice in a contraction. Then, with Leslie’s encouragement, “Let’s see one more push!” she’d say and I’d try for one more, to use the contraction with my pushing to move Finn down.

Once when Leslie said, “One more,” I leaned back on the bed, released my legs and gasped,

“I can’t.”  I remember feeling hopelessness at that point. I told Linda and Dale, “I don’t know how much more I can do this.”

It had been an hour.

Linda said, “That’s a good sign, Jonalyn, this means you’re close, you’re very very close.”

“Close” is a relative term.

Read Part 7 “Slip ‘n Slide”