Is a Natural birth the Most Christian way?
From the moment I conceived, I really wanted to have an unmedicated birth. I wanted everything to feel really natural. I went to pelvic floor therapy and started preparing my body and mind for a natural birth. I considered hiring a doula to support my hospital birth, believing I would need an advocate to stand up for me against the medical staff. This belief started to feel really heavy in my soul. I knew it wasn’t me vs. the medical professionals (I am a medical professional after all), but that’s how it felt. I held onto this verse, believing it was God’s will to labor in pain:
We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time.
Romans 8:22
I believed childbirth was an experience to understand Jesus better, to understand suffering and enduring with the hope of pure joy at the end. I was ready to suffer, and believed my endurance would be a testimony to the medical staff around me through the power of Jesus. I had a worship playlist prepared and verses memorized. I was going to show them I could endure. Meanwhile, God was laughing at my ignorance of my pride.
Get Lanie Hefferly’s stories in your inbox
Join Medium for free to get updates from this writer.
At 34 weeks, we found out baby girl was breech. I did everything in my power to flip this baby, including enduring the painful procedure of the ECV at 37 weeks. At that time my doctor told me she was stuck, she was not going to turn on her own, and I would need to schedule a C-section. A scheduled C-section. I could not think of anything less magical or opposite of my plan. It seemed so sterile, so controlled, an easy way out. I was mad I wouldn’t get to experience going into labor or enduring anything, but I trusted my doctor that this was best.
The week leading up to the C-section, I was grieving my plan and still hoping and praying baby would turn. All of the sudden, I had this revelation that the idea that a C-section was the easy way out was ridiculous. It was much more dangerous for me, I would have no control of the situation, and our lives were fully in the doctor and ultimately God’s hands. The lack of control. I realized immediately that was the real reason I wanted the natural birth. I wanted to feel in control, and God was reminding me for the millionth time, that I’m not. I made my peace and began praying for God’s hand in the C-section and postpartum.
The day of the C-section, I went into the operating room alone for them to give me the spinal block. I was scared. They laid me down and started prepping me for surgery, and I was anxiously watching the door, waiting for my husband to come in so I wouldn’t be alone. I was stripped naked from the chest down, laid under a bright light, several medical staff began prepping me, and they secured my arms out wide in a T position. At that moment, as I waited for them to pierce my abdomen, I felt the closest to Christ I ever have. The vulnerability was striking. I was in the same position he would have been laid on the cross. He willingly went alone, naked, humiliated, prepared for excruciating pain and death for us. I was so humbled. Being like Christ isn’t about preparing, fighting, enduring, or muscling through. Being like Christ is laying your life down for another. Putting yourself in the most humble, vulnerable, out of control, surrendering posture into God’s hands. Not my will but your will.
But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was on him, and by his wounds we are healed. We all, like sheep have gone astray, each of us has turned to our own way; and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all. He was oppressed and afflicted, yet he did not open his mouth; he was led like a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before its shearers is silent, so he did not open his mouth.
Isaiah 53: 5–7
Know that whatever situation you are placed in, it is God’s will. There is no “best” way, only God’s way. You only need to pray to see Christ in any circumstance and he will show you. Seek and you will find.
