Birth Choices and Good Waffles
Over my pregnancy I’ve heard a lot of what I’ll sum up as “but did you consider doing it my way”. Specifically: “but did you consider a homebirth.” The flip side, equally relevant, would be to go to a friend planning a home birth and ask, “But did you know about hospitals?” So I don’t lose anyone to righteous indignation, either is very different than responding to a friend seeking counsel or personal experience, both are responding to a decision that has already been made and assume that the person has not made their decision prayerfully, with their spouse.
Sometimes the suggestions come from a place that I’d liken to if you found the most amazing diner and you JUST HAD TO preach about their chicken and waffles. Best chicken and waffles of your life. These responses are born out of sheer enthusiasm. You’re gonna go somewhere else for breakfast? But did you hear about Best Chicken and Waffles of Your Dang Life up the road? Because some women choose homebirth or hospital birth and the result is what they order off the menu - and when that happens there should be nothing on our lips but praises because this is GOOD WAFFLES.
The problem is when responses assume we are owed a certain experience, certain waffles. Better waffles. For a God-fearing woman that is an invitation to Poison Waffles. The metaphor is breaking down but I/we need levity, and we are not owed any kind of waffles. Think of how we recount birth stories. This is our war, women, and these are our war stories. Fear God, do not fear where we can only die. To die daily for our people, in His name, and to say not what I want Lord but what you will! Nothing will happen to my body even in this fallen world that God did not ordain, nothing that is beyond Him using for His good purpose, and I say that as someone whose body has been through its share of terrible things. (see Matthew 10: 28-29) It would be an oversimplification to say it’s because I’ve lost so many babies that I’m happy with any road that ends in holding a living child in my arms. That wouldn’t be wrong exactly, but it falls short of a better truth: It’s that in losing babies I learned that God loves me all the time, and that is the best story, the best waffles.
***The last line of the first paragraph got cut pretty significantly in my edits and originally referenced that the decision might not even be what was originally hoped/planned/decided on and that *this could be hard* for the couple. I cut it for space and focus and because of instagram’s character limit, but it’s important to remember you might be legitimately stumbling a sister as she tries to keep a right orientation when things go belly up.
Likewise, a lot of comments are passed off as information sharing, assuming the recipient does not know that data. In the current age where so much information is broadly and openly shared - and I’ll grant this is informed by my own particular tendency to be curious and research-oriented to a fault - this is a daring assumption. For example as I gear up for the latest Change of Plans and have a scheduled c-section, I’m going in with too much information - too much knowledge that informed my hopes for our very different plans.
I am not talking about sharing birth stories. I love those. And I am not trying to address “why” someone might feel earnestly compelled to take on an activist role for a birth option. I am talking about telling fellow Christian women we are owed a different birth story than the one God gives us. When we accept the waffles we have been given counting it all joy - that can turn them into good waffles.
It’s not hospital vs home, one labor technique vs another, my doula in a cage match vs your doula. It’s about glorifying God in everything He puts before us. Candidly, when I had to tell my husband about the complications I felt the tears coming. I didn’t want to cry, I didn’t want to fuss, I prayed. It was/is overwhelming. But it wouldn’t be trouble if it wasn’t bigger than me, and it isn’t up to my mind or hear tot guard my peace- the peace of God handles that. It’s when He does His best work.***
