What Kind of World do I Want for My Baby?

What kind of world do I want for my baby?

This is a post that I wrote back in June during a family vacation to Yosemite. Just a thoughtful wish for my little one as she faces an ever-changing world.

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I catch her eye from the backseat of the car on a road trip, and her face lights up. Her dimples appear as she grins at her mama. Feet kicking when she gets excited, her signature "kah" sound as she tries to communicate. My heart is so captivated by this little one. It makes me think - what do I want for my girl? 

There's always something going on in the world. There are countless political controversies, social injustices, religious beliefs that clash... as it has been since the beginning of time. Do I want World Peace? In a way, but I don't think world peace is the answer. 

I don't want a world that is easy for Genny. I don't want everything to be calm and for no one to ever get offended. This describes a world that is passive, where no one believes in anything, where there is no passion. 

I believe that God created the world and that it is now tainted by sin. I believe that He created us to be guardians of this world, to protect it, to fight for it. And I believe that it is a challenge to be a Christian in this world. 

I want Genny to grow up fighting for what she believes, for who she was created to be. At 7 months old, there is already so much fire in her. She knows what she wants, she takes joy in little things, and she is curious about her world. This is my Genesis. 

 

My prayer for her is that the Lord will use her more and more, as He has since she was still growing inside of me, to be a Light in this world of haziness. I pray that she will be passionate for Christ because she knows His word is truth. I pray that she will believe in Grace alone for all of her days and that her fervor will lead others to enjoy the same.

Not world peace, not coexistence, not a life of luxury do I wish for my Genesis. Instead a life of purpose, of grace and humility, of adventure and learning. A life of living to be who she was created to be.

Confidence in Parenting - What is It?

"I don't think I'm doing it right..."
-me (and every parent ever)

I have been a mom for exactly three months, three weeks, and two days, and already I have heard these words come from my mouth a dozen times. Since I have only been a mom for exactly three months, three weeks, and two days, I cannot consider myself an expert. However, I can't help but think there is something wrong about thinking those words so often.

This thought first struck me when I was visiting a friend who had an even newer baby than my own. As we talked about the ever-perplexing sleep schedule discussion, she said the exact thing that I had been saying to everyone. "I don't think I'm doing it right." 

Wow, so I'm not the only one, I thought.

This mommy was doing an awesome job for her baby boy; people told me Genesis was healthy and happy. Yet, this string of doubt came to our tongues as a sort of self endorsed disclaimer that came with our children. Here she is! Yes, she's cute, but I'm probably messing her up. Don't worry though, I am fully aware of this.

What a stressful way to live! Being a parent is hard enough without this added pressure (self-inflicted, I might add) to recognize our failings. Most of being a parent is learning anyway: learning what works, learning what doesn't work, learning with your child, learning without your child - nobody ever told me how different life is when your baby isn't even with you! Honestly, this can do no good for me or for Genesis, so the question remains: why do we feel so unqualified?

During my own desperate search for sleep during Genny's first couple months, I read the excerpt of Bringing up Bebe by Pamela Druckerman. I have a three-month old, so of course I haven't read the whole book. But I did find some encouragement. Please indulge in these pieces from the first chapter which I have selected:

We quickly discover that two restaurant meals a day, with a toddler, deserve to be

their own circle of hell. Bean is briefly interested in food: a piece of bread, or anything fried. But within a few minutes she starts spilling salt shakers and tearing apart sugar packets. Then she demands to be sprung from her high chair so she can dash around the restaurant and bolt dangerously toward the docks.

After a few more restaurant meals, I notice that the French families all around us don’t look like they’re in hell. Weirdly, they look like they’re on vacation. French children the same age as Bean are sitting

contentedly in their high chairs, waiting for their food, or eating fish and even vegetables. There’s no shrieking or whining. Everyone is having one course at a time. And there’s no debris around their tables.

...French parents are very concerned about their kids. They know about pedophiles, allergies, and choking hazards. They take reasonable precautions. But they aren’t panicked about their children’s well-being.

...I’m hardly the first to point out that middle-class America has a parenting problem. In hundreds of books and articles this problem has been painstakingly diagnosed, critiqued, and named: overparenting, hyperparenting, helicopter-parenting, and my personal favorite, the kindergarchy. One writer defines the problem as “simply paying more attention to the upbringing of children than can possibly be good for them.” Another, Judith Warner, calls it the “culture of total motherhood.” (In fact, she realized this was a problem after returning from France.) Nobody seems to like the relentless, unhappy pace of American parenting, least of all parents themselves.

After reading this, I considered my behavior in the past week. Any moment not spent holding Genny, changing Genny, feeding Genny, or rocking Genny was spent staring at the glowing screen of my iPhone, wearing out my thumb as I frantically scanned blog after blog, book after book, professional after professional to find an answer to WHY MY BABY WON'T SLEEP! I closely identified with the above described problem of simply worrying about parenting too much. Feelings of inadequacy brought up each time I read an article titled "10 Things You Should be Doing with Your Child", worry when she ate more at one feeding than the last, anxiety about talking to other moms about little things just in case it isn't "normal". 

It's true that it takes a village. We are not intended to do this alone. Because we have been placed in these roles, we are indeed to have confidence in our parenting, but not confidence in ourselves alone. This confidence is found in Christ and the promise He gave to us that He will always be with us and will never forsake us.

To all you self-doubting mamas, here is a passage for you:

Are we beginning to commend ourselves again? Or do we need, like some people, letters of recommendation to you or from you?

 You yourselves are our letter, written on our hearts, known and read by everyone. 

You show that you are a letter from Christ, the result of our ministry, written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of human hearts. 

Such confidence we have through Christ before God. 

Not that we are competent in ourselves to claim anything for ourselves, but our competence comes from God. H

e has made us competent as ministers of a new covenant—not of the letter but of the Spirit; for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life.

2 Corinthians 3:1-6

Being a mom is hard. No matter where you are, who you are, it's hard. But the Lord chose each one of us to be the mommies and daddies to our kiddos, and we cannot doubt His sovereignty. So next time you see that book on parenting, remember before you pick it up that you have confidence in Christ to be the best parent you can be.

I Want to Be Pro-Choice

This has been something weighing heavy on my heart for the past few months, ever since we heard the obstetrician say that Genesis had a cystic hygroma. The social issues circulating as of late (I mean they've always been there, but it seems like they've increased in the past couple months) have renewed my feelings on the matter.

I want to be pro-choice. It stands for woman's health, constitutional freedom, education, and progressivism. To this effect, I have embarked on a rampage of research and inquiry. The result: according to Google, to be pro-choice, one must by definition advocate legalized abortion. 

My purpose here is not to accuse, I simply desire to understand. I need to understand the abortion issue. I have heard such vehement opposition from both sides of the spectrum, each denouncing the other as malicious and unfeeling. I know that is truly not the case for either pro-choice or pro-life individuals, so what I am asking is for someone to help me. I realize this post may be controversial to some, but it has been heavy on my heart, and I know I must share.

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Recently I was watching TV, and one of the characters decided she was going to go back to school for an intensive four-year degree while taking care of her two kids and her husband as well as working her own full-time job. An admirable goal! This woman found out she was pregnant, and in despair she decided she could not follow her dream of education. In a battle of following your dreams and being true to herself versus staying home to take care of her family, she decided to get an abortion. It was a difficult decision, but she felt she had made the right one and then went on to pursue her fulfilling career.

I was taken aback by this. One moment there was this prospect of a new baby and its whole life springing up in my imagination, and the next that prospect was gone because this woman decided she wanted to follow her career. Yes, this is TV, and I feel a bit silly thinking so much about a show, but the reality struck me that this is real life for so many people. A crossroads that leads to either carrying a baby and being a parent or going on with your life with a hard decision under your belt. 

I do not mean to trivialize this decision, for I know it is a serious one that many women make. I also don't want to skirt around what is actually going on here. This is the part that I don't understand and that I want to. I want to believe that abortion is an option for women for their own good, for their health and wellbeing. But even if all that is true, what about that baby?

The words I have heard used are "embryo" and "fetus", not baby. But what does a woman who is pregnant (with a wanted pregnancy) say? "I'm having a baby." That is the usual result of being pregnant, aside from complications, isn't it? Embryo and fetus lead to baby. So at what point is this embryo or fetus an actual baby? If when it is born, then what about the few moments before it is born when it is inside it's mother's womb? How is that not a baby but passing through a vagina or taken out via cesarean makes it a baby? During an abortion, isn't that the same thing that happens, only the embryo or fetus is no longer alive? So at that point, is it a dead baby or is it just an aborted embryo?

These are not rhetorical questions, I really want some answers here.

I have been scouring the internet for some responses, looking at pro-choice websites and Q&A articles. The questions I find are "Why would someone have an abortion?", "Does having an abortion increase my chances of getting breast cancer?", and "Is a medical abortion dangerous?". These are all important questions that a woman should ask for her own wellbeing. However, they do not address the underlying questions which I am presenting. What about the life that you are ending and how do you justify it?

Women on Web had the question "Can you see the products of the abortion (placenta, embryo, blood) and what should you do with them?" which most closely pertained to my ponderings. The answer was this:

Most of the time women can see blood and tissue in their sanitary napkin or in the toilet. The (very small) embryo is usually passed within this blood and tissue in such as way that it goes unnoticed by the woman. However, it is possible that you might see the (very small) embryo. Depending on the length of the pregnancy, a small pregnancy sac with some tissue around it may be visible. For instance, if you are only five to six weeks pregnant, there will be no visible sac. At nine weeks, you might be able to find a sac in the blood and it is possible that you might see the embryo. With a pregnancy of 8 or 9 weeks, the embryo is about 2,5 cm. This can be distressing.

It is best to flush everything down the toilet or to wrap the sanitary pads in a plastic bag and throw them away.

When I was pregnant with Genny, our first ultrasound was at 12 weeks. In another article on Women on Web addressing how many weeks into your pregnancy you can get a medical abortion, it stated that a "medical abortion has bee shown to be effective through the first trimester (12 weeks) and has been successfully used during the second trimester." If I were to have lost Genesis at this time in my pregnancy, I would have been absolutely devastated. In fact, I thought day after day that this was going to happen, and it heartbreakingly did happen to several people that I am close to. If I had had an abortion, the advice would have been for me to flush the "products of the abortion" down the toilet. If I had had a miscarriage, that would have been my precious baby that I had lost. If the only difference in value of fetal or embryonic life is my emotional investment in its development, then what does that say for the rights of the unborn baby (or embryo or fetus, whatever term you prefer to use)? 

The logic that I am trying to grasp would infer that when Genesis was an embryo at 12 weeks gestation, there would have been no pain  for the fetus (possibly, or maybe pain killers would  have been used) had it been terminated, and that this is not the same thing as ending the life of a child. At what point in my pregnancy did Genesis become a baby, a child, my offspring? I do not believe that most pro-choice individuals consider embryos and fetuses to be "'lumps of tissue' or 'blobs'" as Sarah on The Pro Choice Action Network single-mindedly stated. On the other hand, I do want to know what the embryo/fetus is considered to be.

I would like to address the health and wellbeing of these women, which is the focal point of the pro-choice movement. For many women who have been hurt or who are in a less than ideal situation to be pregnant, it seems that having a baby is not the right thing to do. It is extremely taxing on the body, as countless post-natal products can attest. The birthing process is...well, pretty gross despite what a "miracle" it's supposed to be. Victims of rape and abuse are not able to "move on" with their lives when impregnated. Ambitions and goals become impossible to attain in some cases. Not to mention, every baby deserves to have a fulfilled life. It seems a service to the child to spare it the pain and hardship that it will inevitably face. 

Let me tell you as a new mom that having a baby and raising it is hard. Freaking hard. I can't imagine doing this alone. It is frustrating because you do not understand the tiny little person who so obviously needs something (you can tell from the screaming), and you want to help, but none of your attempts are successful and it seems that baby will never stop and you're tired and all the advice swims around in your brain making you feel like you aren't "doing it right"...

It's a lot.

But even in those hardest of times, when I had tears of desperation in my eyes, I could look down at Genesis and see how helpless she was. Screaming, crying, pooping everywhere, it didn't matter. She depends on me (and quite selfishly, I might add) for everything. She always has, from the moment she came into being inside of me. This is what I cannot overlook. The helplessness of the babies who depend on their mommies. These mommies who define the worth of their unborn children.

So yes, I want to be pro-choice. I ache for women who have been abused, who find themselves with serious health complications or the realization that their unborn baby has a serious complication. But I ache for those babies, too, who will never even get the chance to have a life because of the choice. Anyone who can persuade me otherwise, I am happy to listen. But for now, I cannot be pro-choice.

A New Beginning

It has now been two months and sixteen days since I first held my baby in my arms. To finally hold Genesis Grace in my arms...I could hardly believe it. She was so tiny but so big at the same time. My little daughter, a little person. It was incredible to think she had been inside of me, the little one who had kicked and rolled around and moved her tiny arms and legs in my tummy, who kicked when Ryan played the Bee Gees.

I was very glad to have my amazing friend, Jana, take pictures during labor and delivery. Check out her website to view her other shoots!
http://www.janakayphotography.com/

Here are some of the shots that beautifully tell the story of her delivery.

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Labor started at 4AM, but since I wanted to make sure it was for real, I waited until 6AM to wake up Ryan. We downloaded the contraction app, called the moms, and watched Seinfeld all morning while timing contractions. We called Ryan's sister, Jenna, to get advice on when to go to the hospital, and when they were about four to three minutes apart, she said it might be time to head to the hospital.

When we got there, it was 1PM, and I was already at 7 centimeters. Of course, my doctor was not on call that day, so I had another doctor who I had met at my appoitment the day before. Dr. Cavendar was great, and I had some wonderful nurses in Labor & Delivery.

Most of my labor was spent on this peanut with Ryan supporting my lower back. I was so grateful to have such a fantastic support team. Jana did have to tell Ryan that he didn't have to smile or pose for pictures though...

Laboring in the bed was the worst. I asked if there was a bar I could hold on to, and the nurses and doctor looked surprised. "Yes, we have a bar, but no one has ever asked for it," they said as they pulled it out of the closet.

The labor pains were getting harder and more intense for the last two centimeters. I was glad to have given the nurses a birth plan - they were so great about everything we wanted, and they didn't offer me an epidural, which turned out to be good since I probably would have changed my mind! They asked if I wanted them to break my water to make labor go faster, and I said "YES".

Finally at 10 centimeters, the doctor said I wasn't fully effaced yet, and Genesis was face up. They told me it would be harder to push if she was in this position, but it would hurt a lot more since my water had been broken already. Choosing the lesser of two evils, I turned onto my side and endured the next few contractions. It was the most painful of the whole experience, and Ryan ended up with a few bite marks and fingernail scratches...

"I think I need to push, I think I need to push!" I said, praying to God that this hell would be over soon. Yes, I was praying outloud. And yes I did say, "Please tell me this hell will be over soon."

To push, I used the birthing bar, and I asked Ryan to get in the bed behind me. He held me in between contractions so I could rest since my legs were getting tired. I didn't realize it at the time, but Ryan was also in pain at this time, straddling the bed with his legs and supporting the weight of, essentially, his whole family. He was amazing though, and I honestly could not have done it without him.

It didn't feel like an hour, but I think it was about that long. At first they said just her head was showing, then all at once there she was. All of her all at once. I was shocked that I had done that and that I was finaly looking at my beautiful baby for the first time. They put her in my arms, and Ryan and I held her together.

Genesis Grace, born November 18th at 8:24 PM, weighing 8lbs and 7oz and measuring 20.4 inches long. She cried and cried while they took her measurements until Ryan started talking to her. My mom was there the whole time to meet her first grandbaby. In the waiting room were my dad, Ryan's parents and sister, my brother, my aunt and uncle and three of my cousins, and three of my best friends.

And that is how Genny came into the world! She continues to amaze us with how beautiful and smart and sweet she is. We are so thankful for our miracle baby who surprised the doctors with being born healthy.