The Arrival of Abraham

 

Well, here we are again!

It seems it's taken a lot longer this time to get around to writing this. Maybe that's because I have two toddlers now. Maybe it's because I've been too busy letting my sweet little new friend take up all my space. Maybe it's because I hate writing on my phone. Probably all of those, I don't know.

Regardless, little Abraham has been with us this side of the womb for almost three weeks! And what a sweet addition he's made to our precious family. 

When I sat down to write his birth story last Tuesday, it marked two weeks since I left my midwife's office for what I hoped would be my last prenatal visit. That Tuesday was filled with mixed feelings--anticipation, anxiety, impatience, and a wish that I could suppress all those feelings and float like a serene blob into the future where Abraham would finally be born. 

I'd been pregnant by this point for 40 weeks and two days--the longest I've ever gone. I was tired and sore and facing constant reminders of why being pregnant isn't my favorite thing, regardless of how cool it objectively is. It was that point in pregnancy where giving birth feels both imperative and also like it couldn't possibly ever happen. 

That being said, my third pregnancy was far less fraught with anxiety, overall, than either of my first two. While pregnant with both my first son and daughter, I spent the last two weeks of each pregnancy fretting and stressing and pacing like a madwoman. Yet here I was, two days overdue, and only on the baby's due date had I started trying to induce labor. If you know me at all you'll be impressed by my forbearance, which, I think, can only be attributed to the work of the Holy Spirit, and the fact that I had started seeing a midwife OBGYN in preparation for a natural childbirth.

My first two children's birth stories are beautiful and I wouldn't change them. But experience has shown me that the more I try to control something (especially something as momentous as the birth of a baby), the harder it is to trust God with it. 

That may seem "duh" to you, but as a lifelong control freak with a particularly thick skull, it's taken a lot of lessons over the years for me to start acknowledging this. I set out to try natural birth this time because I wanted to give myself fewer illusions of control. Taking all the optional interventions off the table for myself meant fewer choices to be made, and fewer opportunities for me to try to do a job that wasn't really mine. And so, for the first time, I was able to spend (most of) my energy in the last few weeks happily anticipating the baby's arrival and appreciating any extra time we had to prepare. 

Going over 40 weeks had never appealed to me, as I'm a fan of deadlines. But working with a midwife gave me a lot more confidence in the process, and I trust Jenda's judgement enough to suspend my own anxiety and listen to her advice. So, at my 40 week appointment on the 12th of September, we decided together to induce no more than a week later if Abe decided to procrastinate further. I frankly dreaded the potential prospect of another week being the shape and size of a small planet, but Jenda reassured me that everything would be fine and that it wasn't likely to be much longer. To help me along, we decided to try a membrane sweep. She told me that many women go into labor the same night they have this done. 

I left the clinic that afternoon feeling slightly more at peace, and trying not to get my hopes up. The rest of the day I kept an eye on my contractions, which were coming more regularly, but not closely enough together to justify us making for the hospital. My husband and I took the kids on a two-mile walk around the neighborhood, admiring the just-changing leaves and feeling blessed that it was cooler than 80 degrees out. That night I went to bed more relaxed than I had in a few weeks. I prayed that little Abe would come soon, safe and healthy, that delivery would go quickly, preferably during the day, and that God would help me to accomplish it.

5:30 am rolled around and I woke up very uncomfortable, with contractions coming every several minutes. Was it time? Not wanting to rush anything, I woke up Zac and told him we might need to prepare to leave in a little while. I wanted to stay at home for as long as possible, to let the toddlers sleep and to minimize the time I'd have to spend wearing one of those horribly unfashionable hospital gowns. By 6:30 the contractions were coming regularly and painfully enough that I knew we needed to get ready. I called the clinic as we were about to leave, about an hour later. The nurse, possibly concerned that I was heading for the hospital prematurely, told me to come to the clinic first for a cervical exam. 

I'd like to say that I handled this suggestion with all graciousness, but it ticked me off. I remembered my mother telling me that when she was in labor with my older sister, her doctor had told her to wait at home because she "didn't sound like she was in enough pain." Was a similar thing going to happen to me? Had I not moaned in agony enough during my interaction with the nurse? And anyway, who was this person to tell me over the phone that I couldn't be trusted to time my own contractions and know my own body? I knew it was time! I had waited for two hours to be sure I wasn't imagining things! 

Thankfully I was able to keep my annoyance to a minimum on the phone, but as soon as I hung up, I called my sister Julia to let her know we'd be dropping the kids off with her and to vent my frustration about being sent to the clinic rather than the hospital.

Thank God for sisters. Not only are they willing to accept the delivery of two breakfast-minded ruffians into their home on short notice, they also tell you what you need to hear. Which, in my case, amounted to her saying that I should trust my instincts, call the clinic back and tell them I was heading straight to the hospital. When we got to her house, I said goodbye to my first two babies as their little heads bobbed away into the living room, looking for their cousin. As I made to walk out the door, a contraction came on and I squatted through it, focusing on my breathing. I felt like I had prepared as much as I could--I felt ready. Julia gave me a hug and told me she was so excited for me. 

I got back in the car and called the clinic to tell them we had decided to skip a step. I don't think the nurse was all that enthused about my decision, but she assured me they would send Jenda to the hospital to meet us. 

On the way to the hospital, my contractions stalled. Wouldn't that just be perfect, I thought. I call the nurse back to tell them I'm sure about going to the hospital, and by the time I get there I won't be in labor anymore. My theory now is that I felt so tense after the irritating phone calls that my body went into energy-conservation mode and took a pause from labor. 

So it was that we arrived at the maternity ward and I was hardly in any pain at all. When the receptionist asked me how far apart my contractions were, I didn't know how to answer. I could've cried in frustration. I told her how far apart they had been an hour ago and didn't mention the fact that they had stalled. We waited for fifteen minutes for a nurse to take us into an exam room--where, thankfully, Jenda arrived shortly after to check my progress.

It turned out I was already 7cm dilated, which is pretty far along. Julia commented later on that she couldn't believe I was dilated so far and yet hardly seemed fazed by the contraction I had squatted through at her house. As far dilated as I was though, the baby was sitting pretty high up in my uterus--higher than he had been the previous day, Jenda informed me. She seemed baffled by this. "What is he doing in there?" she said. 

So now the assignment became getting the baby to move downward and restart the contractions. Jenda marched me through the hospital hallways at almost too quick a pace for my pregnant self.

After this I was required to sit on a birthing ball to encourage the contractions. Jenda was a very no-nonsense coach, giving me plain instructions and easy-to-grasp explanations of what was going on. Most of the time I'm not a big fan of being told what to do, but in labor I was grateful to have straightforward assignments. My main concern was to focus on breathing through each contraction calmly; something that helped with this was exhaling with what they call "horse lips" in the natural labor world, but which we called lip trills during my years in University Choir. It would seem my training as a singer in college helped prepare me in some way for this. How cool is it that those seemingly unrelated parts of our lives sometimes just come together like that? 

During this stage of labor, my husband was doing a lot of waiting. I laughed at him for looking at memes on his phone during the parts where I needed him less. But it was funny, afterward, to see the notifications from instagram reels he'd sent me just before our baby was born. They were like souvenirs. 

Soon I was having more contractions; they got more painful. Zac sat behind me, ready to apply counter-pressure to my hips whenever I needed it. But for a little while it almost seemed like nothing was happening. The contractions weren't getting much closer together. The baby was stubborn about moving downward. I had hoped that, since I was doing labor naturally, we would be able to forgo monitoring the baby's heartbeat constantly to allow me a little more freedom to move around, but he was such a little stinker that the monitors had to stay on. There would be no shower or tub for me. 

Jenda decided to try breaking my water, but it didn't work! Again I saw the bafflement on her face as she exclaimed that she had no idea why there was no amniotic fluid rushing out of me. And so I just continued moving, bouncing on the ball, and later on, squatting through the contractions as Zac supported me until my water broke on its own. It was painful and intense and strange, but having him there to lean on through it was a huge comfort to me. 

Abe was head-down and making progress, but he was also lying face up in my uterus, which is not optimal for childbirth. I'm not sure, but I wonder if that was hindering his progress a little bit. Jenda tried several times to manually turn him around in there, which to me was the worst part of the whole process, psychologically. 

Breathing through a contraction while your midwife tries to turn your baby around... it just doesn't feel good at all, to put it lightly. It feels like the opposite of natural. While recovering later on, the word "horrific" kept popping into my mind whenever I recalled this particular detail. 

So far, nothing about this experience was living up to my expectations--but then, I had prepared for that as well. I had written up a birth plan but ultimately decided against bringing it to the hospital. I was sure that everything would happen as it should, without me controlling it--and I wanted to retain that confidence once it was happening. This was no easy task, one I couldn't have accomplished without the reassurance of the Holy Spirit. There were moments during labor where it definitely did not feel like things were going to be okay, but because of His presence with me, I never believed that I wouldn't make it. 

2 Timothy 3:14 contains a charge to the letter’s recipient to continue in what he’s learned of God and the Gospel, remembering the heritage of faith given to him through his family and experiences. After giving birth to Abe, I have a sharper perspective on this verse—it’s about the germ, the mustard seed of truth planted in easy times that, tiny as it is, brings forth a harvest of perseverance when you truly need it the most. 

All the affirmations that God had poured into me during my pregnancy--affirmations of His help and His strength becoming mine--came back to me in the most difficult moments of labor, and sustained me. I learned what it meant to have a mustard seed of faith. It was barely faith at all, almost nothing more than a memory of it. But because God was in it, it was enough. 

That was how I endured lying on my side for the last 45 minutes of labor in an attempt to get the baby to turn around, while the contractions intensified and all I wanted to do was run and leave my body behind. 
I never thought I’d have to cope with the last stage of labor with my movement restricted so much, but thankfully I remembered some advice I’d read in a book my sister gave me, about how women in other cultures often have their midwives and partners shake them during their contractions. I’d never discussed this with Jenda or Zac before this point, and by now it was too hard to talk, so I did it myself. I lay on the bed, resting and breathing and praying between each contraction. Every time I felt the pain returning I signaled to Zac to dig his fingernails into my palms, and then I started shaking myself, imagining my muscles relaxing. Trying to become jello. Jenda laughed and said, “I don’t think I could do that even if I wasn’t contracting.” Hearing her and the nurse chuckle at my crazy coping method helped ground me somewhat. If they were so calm and happy, then I must be okay. I couldn’t give up. I said I would do this, I wanted to do it, and anyway, it was too late now to change my mind. 

 
It seemed like it would go on forever this way, but thank God, babies are meant to come out. At 12:43 I found myself being coaxed onto my hands and knees, apparently the best birthing position when your baby is face-up, and I felt nothing now except the pain-ridden animal desire to get Abe out at any cost. I could barely think, barely hear as Jenda coached me to take it slowly, that Abe was almost here. I was mindless. I was afraid. I screamed and groaned and yelled “NOO” like a dying woman. But I felt a sense of determination I’d never felt before, and at 12:49–a shockingly quick six minutes later—my second son was born.

In the end, he never turned around. He came out face to face with the world, screaming almost immediately. The nurse told me “He’s out! You did it!” All I could say was, “No way.” No way had I done something so unimaginably hard. But it must be over, because I felt the fear dissipate. 

I climbed up onto the bed and they handed me my baby. He had tufty black hair and a squishy little face and was completely perfect in every way. Without an epidural, I felt all the residual pain of pushing a baby out of me. It was surprising at the time how much it still hurt—I hadn’t known what to expect. But it was so much less now, and I was holding Abe, finally, and I could almost ignore it. (Almost. I practically inhaled the ibuprofen they brought me about an hour later.)

I was sure that I had sustained serious damage. Hadn't my body been ripping itself apart five minutes ago? But Jenda assured me that there was no tearing. I was probably in better shape, actually, than I had been after either of my first two deliveries. I praised God for so many prayers answered. 

As I lay there, trying to relax my adrenaline-charged limbs, snuggling the sweetest of babies in my arms, I remarked to the nurse that the post-birth experience was very different than I'd expected, as I'd had epidurals with my first two babies. She looked at me in surprise. 

"I'm shocked!" she said. "I would have thought you'd done this all three times. You were so controlled!"

I didn't know what to say. I hadn't felt in control at all. I felt like I had just almost died. But it was nice to hear anyway. 

I had a lot of feelings about the experience over the next few days, which I'm sure I will write about in another post, but I think at this point I can say that this pregnancy and birth experience was the best one I've had so far, and I wouldn't change a thing about it. 

We named our boy Abraham Ezekiel. A strong name, I like to say. Readers of this blog (or anyone who’s known me for any length of time) will know I deeply admire Abraham Lincoln. The name Abraham itself means “father of multitudes.” Ezekiel was a fearless Old Testament prophet, and his name means “God strengthens.” 

All of our children’s names are prayers. This one is a prayer for a strong foundation, for wise leadership, and for unshakable trust in God’s sovereignty. 

As I prepared to give birth naturally, I considered the middle name a prayer for me as well, a reminder of where true strength comes from. I never wanted to forget who my help would be--and now I pray I never forget how giving birth to Abraham illustrated this reality in such a visceral way. 

Psalm 27:1 "The Lord is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear? The Lord is the stronghold of my life; of whom shall I be afraid?"

Our baby already has a name

Naming things has always been a duty of utmost gravity to me. I named my flip phone in high school (Santiago), each of my cars (Sunny, Sirius, Cherry, Han, Blackavar), my stuffed animals (too many to list, sorry). I nicknamed almost all my friends through middle school and high school (fewer than the stuffed animals but still, I won't bore you). The first time I remember naming something is when we got our first poodle. Her name was Chloe, the name was my suggestion, everyone agreed it fit, and I have been wearing that knowledge like a medal of self-affirmation ever since. 

More recently husband and I have agonized over which name would best fit each of our cats (Pippin, the late Bombadil, Zuko, Princess Peach). Their names are fun and fitting, often literary. But naming a baby is a very different task. Almost a prophetic one.

I don't believe in mantras or manifestation, but I do believe there is something profound about a name. God certainly does. All throughout the Bible He was naming people, re-naming people, calling and commanding and setting apart. It's part of Him knowing us, better than we even know ourselves. That's why naming a child feels different, like it's almost too big a task for my human brain. A person's name is the first thing they claim as a part of their identity; what their name means can inspire and encourage them as they grow up. I learned in elementary school that the name Samantha, translated from the Aramaic, means listener. After that it always seemed to me like a title worth living up to (and here's how we know God has a sense of humor, because it is often a great challenge for me to listen well). 

For the one who does the naming, it creates a sense of connection, of responsibility and pride, that for some reason isn't there until a name is spoken. That's why Zac and I named each of our children while they were still in the womb--to confirm their humanity, their value, their set-apart-ness. That's why we've prayed over each of our children's names, and why we wouldn't just change one on a whim. That's the human explanation for why our second son is named Abraham. 

Abrahamic covenant

The ultrasound didn’t show me

the color of your eyes, the pattern of your hair.

It wouldn’t show those things,

the ones that come with time.

Whether you will like Brussels sprouts 

or playing in the snow.

There is no prenatal personality test,

no questionnaire or list of preferences.

Your existence, enabled in part by my own

flesh and blood,

depends on something else entirely.

Would I take that job if I could?

Pencil in your features like some dystopian geneticist,

gray-green eyes and your dad’s hair.

I’d never have to tell you

not to hit your sister.

You’d never cry over out-of-reach candy.

And I think

you’d end up really boring.

We named you Abraham before we saw you,

a name emanating legacy,

a dream of faith-fed greatness. Abraham.

Presidential, near-prehistoric. Possibility

and promise.

No, I wouldn’t write your story.

The part of me that wants to 

has all the fear, none of the reckless courage

such a name requires.

But God knew you before I did,

he saw your footprints and where they led,

and promised to lead you.

You may not turn out to be

the father of a nation 

but you will be the father of something.

Your life brings forth some newness

some first-print exclusive

never-would-have-thought backstory

written by the only original in the universe.

We chose your name

but I have a feeling

God did that too.

Pregnant again

Yes, we are having another baby! Our new baby boy is 17 weeks old and growing! 

And yes, this is a good, good thing. 

My husband and I are blessed with three children now, two who have been born, and we couldn't be more grateful for the love and support we have found over the last couple years in starting our family. 

After the first baby, a lot of things are different, and one thing that's stuck out to me in this most recent pregnancy is the change in tone when people find out. 

I just want to say this isn't a complaint. I'm very excited to have another new baby join the club, and I don't need others to validate me because I know all new life is a gift from God. But it's weird how the negativity seeps in further with each new addition. People will be happy for you, but there's a wariness to them. A fear that maybe this time the new baby won't be a blessing but a burden.  

I'm past the point of wanting people to say different things. Everyone's going to say something, and I shouldn't expect them to shape their though process to what fits my worldview best. There's been plenty said to me by the few people I told about this pregnancy early, and all of it varied widely--even though everyone in my life we shared our news with is supportive and wonderful.

I said before I don't want to expect people to change their words to suit me, and that's true. But I do think the way we talk about things matters. It matters because our words shape our perceptions more than we'd like to admit, and the words we hear from others operate in the same way. In our society we're accustomed to labeling children as a burden. When we Christians, who should know better than anyone what a blessing a baby is, who follow a God who has never said anything but positive things about children, start to absorb this worldview, it comes out even when we are happy about a pregnancy.

That's how you end up congratulating someone on a new baby and in the same breath saying,

"Children are expensive." 

"Pregnancy is traumatic."

"When are you going to be done?" 

"They'll be so close in age, you'll be exhausted!"

"Bet your husband is planning his vasectomy already!"

"I'm just glad it's you and not me."

These are all things I've heard people say to expecting moms (most of them to me) upon their pregnancy announcement. As if they feel compelled to temper their joy with a dose of reality. And I've been guilty of the same thing myself. Why do we feel we have to do this? 

I think life so often disappoints us that we feel the need to buffer our happiness with a layer of doubt. We stop ourselves from diving in to the joy of life because we don't want to be taken by surprise when things are hard. We project our own fears or struggles onto other people because we don't want them to suffer. We fear that if we experience joy too fully, it might seem to others that we don't see their hardships. 

This kind of thing is not only unhelpful, it's dumb. I say that from experience. It's dumb not to allow yourself to appreciate blessings, for any reason. It's dumb to let your anxiety taint the joy of others. It's dumb to look at a good thing and, because it isn't easy or because we live in a world full of bruises, to say that it might actually be bad. Good things are good, and they can be good even here.

Our mindsets need to change on this. Yes, having children isn't all rainbows all the time. Nothing is. That doesn't mean every child isn't a masterpiece handcrafted by God. 

If motherhood has taught me one thing it's that I can't control everything. I actually pretty much control nothing. And any time I start feeling it's my responsibility to ensure that everything is the way it should be for my babies, God sees fit to remind me that ultimately it is He who takes care of all of us.

He's taken care of me my whole life, and He takes care of my children. 

He takes care of the children whose mothers don't. Who've been abandoned by their fathers or shunted into the system. He watches over every soul on this earth, the forgotten, the lonely, the impoverished, the enslaved. He knows their circumstances better than even their parents could. And He loves them better than anyone. Children are precious to the Lord, their Creator. So how can I see them as anything but precious, a thing to be cherished, a gift to be in awe of every day?  

Not every mother can see this, or has ever even heard this truth about her children. But we followers of Jesus are ambassadors of His truth, His light. We should take this responsibility seriously, not using our words to discourage, but to uplift. 

You're worried a mama you know is going to have a hard time--so what? It's the perfect opportunity to ask her if she needs anything. To come alongside her and let her know you love her and her baby and want the best for both of them. To not discourage her by saying something negative. 

Next time you speak to a mama, encourage her. Affirm that her baby (or babies) are loved and created for a purpose. Rejoice with her! Let God open your heart to her. If she has needs you can meet, give generously to her family. We don't have to let joy blind us to need--we should joyfully participate in the will of God to meet those needs. That way, we don't keep our joy hoarded away, not to be shown. Instead we get to share it with others, and point to the One who makes our joy complete. 

My baby girl is eight months old

She is too big. And too tiny. 

Babies are weird, because time with them is both long and short and they seem both young and old and mysterious and familiar.

Because my children are such a strange phenomenon to me, I think one of the best things I can do is write poems for them. I want to remember how surreal this time is, how fleeting, how surprising. 

For my daughter
You aren't real.
You're from a dream of mine,
a memory of a future that used to be 
unattainable,
far-off and ever-changing
like the many professions I aspired to.
My visions of adulthood,
as real to me as the costume jewelry in our dress-up box,
never included the words "my daughter."
A daughter was somehow
a strange thing,
an impossible thing.
How could I muster dreams of a you
that would inevitably be
so like me?
I'd have to know you,
really know you,
nose-to-nose.

It makes sense now
how you seemed not to fit then
before I knew your shape existed.
Discovering you was like
finding a Delorean in a parking lot.

I say the words
"my daughter" now
and they're shaped like you--
just the thought of your smiling cheeks,
so jolly, so soft
like tiny flans
and I could cry about the you
that is somehow both real
and everything I ever wanted
without knowing what I wanted was
you. 

God does answer prayers

June 24th is the new favorite holiday of all pro-life people. A poem for the occasion:

Finally, an Answer

Is this the first one:
It feels like the first real victory,
the first time we rallied
and overcame the enemy.
It feels like the first day in decades
we've breathed clean air

But is it, really,
when for the light to get here
it had to travel quite the distance,
one point in history to the next,
too far away to see at first,
now blindingly here,
leaving behind
a trail of undaunted footsteps.

Every domino set, a victory.
Every step forward, a battle won.

No,
when God was silent
He was not absent--
He was there, baton raised
breath poised,
kinetically focused,
never hasty.
Our lens is a pinpoint;
our frame too small
to realize how short our time is,
how infinitesimal the gap
between silence and sound,
between earth and sun.

So in the darkness, still I will thank Him
for the speed of light. 

Babies are My Favorite People

Babies really are just the best. 

Pre-motherhood me did not understand how some people seemed to be enamored of every baby they met. Don't get me wrong, I'd known some cool babies before having my own, but I was never very impressed by babies in general until becoming a mother. Now I know the truth: that babies embody many of the good things we adults strive for, or feel we've lost. And they are the purest of us all. 

Our culture is way behind on this. Women nowadays fear fertility. Young people find babies gross, needy, demanding, and inconvenient. Which they are. 

But as adults, it's so easy to forget we were all babies at one point. Our society is full of evil Headmistress Trunchbulls, expounding on the toxicity of the festering pustules that are children while denying they were once, not really so long ago, a little pustule of screams, snot and tears. And in reality, we should all be grateful that someone chose to put up with us in the pustule stage, because for parents it ain't always easy.

Parents have to put up with their children. Parents have to allow their children safe harbor in their home, make food for children to throw on the floor, and find their list of favorite hobbies reduced to a single word: silence. 

Why? you may ask. Why should a fully developed, functioning adult be reduced to a servitor of someone else's needs--particularly a someone who will probably never thank them, even once they learn how to say phrases with more than one syllable?

There are a few good reasons, but all of them pretty much boil down to this: babies are innocent.

Babies have never done anything wrong. On their own, they have no concept of evil. They haven't reached the point where malice becomes interesting to them. No baby will ever want to hurt you.

They're also incredibly self-assured. My toddler waddles around like a tiny drunk, convinced that the entire world loves him. And why shouldn't they? He's a baby, not a pimply teenager or a cynical coworker. 

A baby is the least cynical of all people. They live life ready to be pleased with everything, and when something bad happens to them it's an incredible surprise. We find it odd when a baby cries inconsolably over a tiny scrape on their knee or a dropped sippy cup--but imagine if you had lived the entirety of your life without a single thing going wrong (that you were aware of), and then one day you arrived in a place where things go wrong at least once a day, maybe more. That's quite the adjustment for a little pustule brain.

And that's the other really cool thing about babies. They are dang smart.

Oh, I know, they can't pronounce the letter Q and they think lint rollers are hairbrushes. But they are absolute shamwows when it comes to learning new information. They observe and pick up on everything, then next thing you know they're showing you where they hid their shoe when you've been driving yourself crazy for half an hour looking for it. Who's smarter than who now? 

Not to mention, teaching babies stuff makes you feel smarter. My toddler can't quite get the last of the yogurt off a spoon, but I can do that without even batting an eye. Take that, babies. 

I mean it, babies are awesome. Most of us are just in denial.

Maybe one reason why we tend to be annoyed by children is because a small part of us resents them for their lack of encumbrances. A baby has no problem crying in a public space. You, on the other hand, can't even let yourself have a good cry in the mirror when you're all alone in your apartment--let alone allow another human being to witness your splotchy-faced, tearstained glory. Maybe we all wish someone would just hold us close and feed us, be responsible for our well-being so we wouldn't have to, let us sleep on them and smile at us even when we accidentally yank the hair out of their skull.

We're jealous of babies because we ourselves have lost our baby-ness as we age, and we've become aware of how messed up the world is. In adulthood we stay just as self-centered and entitled as babies, but without the impeccable purity that allows for such indulgences. When I pull your hair now, it's because I wanted to regardless of how it made you feel. When I make unreasonable demands of the cashier at a McDonald's now, it's because I don't care enough to moderate my frustration. The main difference between me and a baby is that I choose to do bad things; a baby may do bad things without knowing what he's choosing. 

In that way, the openness and dependency of babies is humanity in its ideal form. And I think the reason we become worse over time is because, for whatever reasons, our sense of security gets stolen as we age. People disappoint us and hurt us. Life makes us uncomfortable, unfulfilled. The world loses its sheen of newness and becomes bland like a plain pita chip. 

But what if we could rediscover that sense of security? Then maybe our innocence would find its way back to us. We wouldn't unlearn our knowledge of the world's brokenness, but it would be neutralized by our trust in the One taking care of us, who loves and holds us through all our human nonsense. That's why Jesus told us to become like children. 

To overcome ourselves, we have to realize that not only are we dependent on God, but we can depend on Him. And with that confidence we can begin to throw off the burdens of adulthood and become the grown-up babies we were always meant to be. 

  

Abortion isn't Healthcare. It's a Holocaust.

I can't stop thinking about those babies. 

More than likely you already know what I'm talking about, but if you don't: last week, the bodies of five babies were recovered by Washington D.C. police in the home of a well-known pro-life advocate. For days the pro-life community has been calling out for an investigation into their deaths, which appear not only brutal in nature (as all abortion is), but potentially illegal as well. There has been nothing but radio silence from the D.C. government in response. 

This is our holocaust. 

I do not use that word lightly. Some may think I use it inappropriately, but I don't care. The time for sparing feelings has long since passed, and abortion is a holocaust on a grander scale than any Nazi ever could have dreamed. And yet, so many of us are silent. So many are content to stand by and do nothing. So many are content to keep the truth buried inside.

And what's our excuse? Social ostracization. Unpleasant conversations. Imperfect solutions. The Germans in 1940 had better excuses than we do. 

After a week like this, it can be hard to remember that evil is destined to lose. But I still believe in the God who defeated death. 

Lament for the Five

Five.

Five children dead.

Five sons and daughters mangled, abandoned

to blood and fear, cold and betrayal. 

Five dead faces speak for millions,

and the wicked heart calls this barbarism 

beauty.

These words, these thoughts are poison,

bitter herbs and stinging bites.

But how can I write anything else

when my mind is full of them?

Words of sorrow and rage,

hateful condemnations,

silent screams. 

I am anger,

I am a blunt weapon.

I am fatigue, I am nausea.

I am everything unrighteous. My heart

turns against me.

I hate death and desire destruction.

I desire the destruction of the wicked

yet my own maladies would condemn me.

Pain and death surround me.

The pain of the innocent encroaches on my safety.

With every breath

fear and hopelessness snatch at my joy.

The dead lurk behind my eyelids.

I cry rivers of blood,

never enough to satisfy a cruel world.

But the Holy One of Israel will not be thwarted.

His hands heal their misery,

for them now just a memory, 

while left behind,

we live still, in the echoes.

Come quickly to save me,

Man of Sorrows and Prince of Peace.

Wipe the tears from my eyes.

Let me write of beauty and love.

Let me sing songs of hope,

courageous ballads.

Let me dance and be joyful.

No more songs of lament

will flow from my lips,

no tears then

Except tears of laughter when I see You.

You, always before me,

just in your anger. Eager in mercy.

Perfect in goodness and

inescapable.

Let me rejoice and find in You my salvation.

find out more about how you can fight the evil of abortion at liveaction.org

A Long-Awaited Treasure

Not so long ago, I was just sitting down to write my son Salem's birth story. Now he's almost 15 months old and here I am again, writing his little sister's. (The scene is very similar, actually, except for a few significant details: there are two cribs in the nursery now instead of one, and while one tiny baby sleeps on my chest, my firstborn is now too much his own man to ever do more than sit next to me on the couch for a few minutes. I'm using my phone, not my laptop, to draft this post, because toddlers have devious little fingers that can't be trusted with laptop keyboards.)

Lydia Zahava was born on February 28th, 2022, one day after her due date. 

She had spent the entire month previous playing practical jokes on me. Night after night I went to bed with mild contractions, thinking it couldn't possibly be that much longer until she finally decided to come out--and every morning I woke up, still pregnant and incredibly tired of it. By the middle of February my body felt so cumbersome that my husband started helping me into and out of bed without me needing to ask. I started avoiding the stairs in my house at any cost. I grew increasingly touchy about acquaintances' well-meaning inquiries of "how much longer?" and "no baby yet?"

I expected the end of my second pregnancy to involve less anxiety than the first, but in reality it was more excruciating--probably because of my expectations. I felt I should be more prepared, should be able to easily distinguish between real labor and a Braxton Hicks contraction. I thought my labor was sure to start suddenly, since my body had already been through the process before--and this is what I wanted, for things to simply happen. But these expectations kept getting disproven left and right. I told people sardonically that the feeling was like knowing you were going on a road trip soon, but not when you were leaving or where you were going--only that you had to be ready to leave at a moment's notice. 

One night as I treated Zac to my millionth rant on the subject, he stopped me and said, "Have you been praying about this? I haven't heard you mention God a single time in this whole conversation." To which I replied, "Get out of my face with that convicting nonsense."

Not really. But that is kind of how it felt. To be honest, I didn't want to talk to God about it because I thought I could predict what He'd say: that I should be patient and trust his timing and let go of my expectations. As much as I wished I could be patient, I was also tired of being placated and admonished. But I will begrudgingly admit that Zac was right to point this out to me. 

So I decided that I would just start complaining to God. Every morning I nagged Him with the same request, to finally meet this baby, knowing that one of these days that prayer would be answered with a yes. I stopped ending my prayers before they began. I told God how I was feeling. And He did not give me what I wanted--but He did also show me how okay it actually was for me to not get my way. Every notion I had about the perfect timing got chucked out the window one by one. We made a plan to induce on the 28th, a Monday. It was an unsavory choice for me, the last resort I hadn't wanted to worry about. But every day I got a little more comfortable with being proven wrong. 

Not that I gave up very easily. I still paced my living room like a caged tiger and danced around my kitchen and recklessly drank chamomile tea in the hopes that the little lady might catch my hints. 

She did not. Or if she did, she decided unequivocally to ignore them. By the 27th, Lydia's due date, she was no closer to moving herself out and I had been sufficiently humbled to no longer feel like inducing was somehow beneath me, like it meant I was giving up or admitting to my desperation. In other words, I got over myself a little bit. 

The day itself was a beautiful day. The night before, my parents came by our house to pick up Salem for his very first sleepover, and I didn't even cry after they left (I got that over with before they arrived). On Monday Zac and I got up at 5:45. I had predicted only restless, anxious sleep for myself--if any--but far from being anxious, I was relieved. That morning did indeed feel like getting ready for a road trip--a road trip that promised the best souvenir ever. Nothing was rushed. The car seat buckled in, the go bags stuffed in the trunk, the tiny polka dot dress for Lydia all ready for her to come home in style. The week's forecast was practically summery, so much so that I boldly left the winter weather car seat cover at home. 

To most people, when you say the words "in labor," the images that come to mind are hardly placid ones. Most people would not envision a pleasant day spent playing made-up word games with one's spouse, watching Marvel movies on TV, and cracking jokes with two nurses as they bustle around checking monitors and hooking up bags of fluid. But that was how we spent Lydia's birthday. The only low points in the day were getting a disgusting IV placed in my right forearm, and trying not to picture the epidural needle going into my back as I squeezed the life out of Zac's hands. 

I will never be ashamed of getting pain medication during labor. With Lydia, and Salem as well, once I had the epidural I was able to rest and really enjoy the time spent anticipating the birth. I can remember both days as peaceful, even restful, preparation for an exciting change. 

In total, I was in labor for about 9 hours. At 5:15 pm, my doctor arrived to interrupt our scheduled programming of Avengers: Endgame, and it was time to push (we did finish the movie afterward, ha). I was so grateful that this moment came before the nurse shift changed, so that the two nurses who had helped make my day so peaceful were the ones there with me when Lydia made her appearance. 

She was born at 5:41, weighing 7lb 15oz, measuring 20 inches long and looking, somehow, just like her dad. In the end she couldn't have made it easier on me. 

We named her Lydia Zahava. Lydia was Zac's choice: in his words, the prettiest name for a girl he could think of (and fitting, because it actually means "beauty"). Zahava is a name of Hebrew origin, from the word zahav, meaning "gold." Lydia Zahava, because of what a treasured gift she is to us, and because our prayer for her is that she will learn to find her worth in the beautiful identity that God bestowed upon her when He created her. 

I spent the next day in the hospital with her, just the two of us, since Zac, husband and dad extraordinaire, had to be at work. My mom brought Salem to see us during the day, and I loved watching his sweet, clumsy fascination with his new little sister. We brought both our babies home on the evening of March 1st. 

This time around, the wait was certainly the hardest labor, but our precious Lydia is well worth it. She's truly adorable, a little angel who looks just like her brother when she's sleeping and makes the tiniest squeaking noises whenever she stretches out her limbs. She's had no trouble at all stealing the hearts of everyone she meets--except maybe the cats. 

Welcome to the world, sweet girl. 

He will be the sure foundation for your times,
    a rich store of salvation and wisdom and knowledge;
    the fear of the Lord is the key to this treasure.

Isaiah 33:6

Let's talk about IVF

Is in vitro fertilization a moral or ethical practice, and should I, as a pro-life Christian, support it? Perhaps you've never asked, or been asked, this question before, but it's important for us, as principled individuals, to have a clear and well-defined philosophy on any Life issue. 

For the purposes of this post, IVF is defined as the process by which a mother and father's egg and sperm are combined to create a new life outside the womb, and then that new life is either implanted in the womb or frozen in a kind of stasis until the parents decide what should be done with it.

This practice is wrong. It is not ethically consistent with either a pro-life or a Christian Life ethic, and we need to start thinking about it more critically.

Before going further, I want to fully acknowledge that this is a sensitive and painful topic. I've heard many families' heartbreaking stories about infertility, and I know that the decision to attempt IVF is not made lightly by anyone. Feel free to disagree with me on this, but regardless of the difficulty, I think my claim is valid. Here's why:  

On a basic level, IVF is both selfish and wasteful. Selfish because it creates tiny humans who are then subject to the will of others, the question of whether they will have a chance to grow answered not by natural means, but by the parents' choice. Wasteful because even in the most hopeful of circumstances, it is generally accepted and even expected that not all babies created through IVF will survive to be born, or even be implanted in their mother's womb. This has created a consumerist attitude toward IVF babies, where their futures are determined either by convenience or desperation. 

A mother who experiences one successful pregnancy may decide she doesn't desire to repeat the process with her leftover embryos. She may die, or develop health problems that make it unwise for her to become pregnant, before having the chance to bear all her children. On the other hand, a mother may choose to implant the last of her IVF children only because the process hasn't been successful yet. The result is either that the remaining babies are never prioritized for a chance at life, or the one successful pregnancy leaves behind it a trail of miscarried siblings. 

Those miscarried babies are precious lives lost, every one a tragedy. And those extra embryos, the ones never implanted, are often left behind in "storage," never to be implanted unless a new family comes to adopt them from their biological parents. 

Creating a human and then essentially putting them into cryo-sleep until it suits you to give them a chance at growing (possibly never) is unethical, no matter one's reasoning. IVF treats human lives as products. There is no dignity in it for the person created in the process. 

And the industry itself displays an ironic callousness toward unborn lives, regardless of how the parents feel about their embryos. Use of IVF is always accompanied by the basic assumption that not all embryos created this way will survive--and if those children do miraculously beat the odds, it actually complicates the situation further. Parents are warned against implanting too many of their children at a time, lest those babies actually grow and the pregnancy become threatening to the mother's health. 

In this case, many OBGYNs will advise their IVF patients that "selective reduction"--ending the life of one or more of the growing embryos--is a desirable way to prevent too many of them from surviving until a dangerous point. So not only are babies selectively chosen for life during the implantation process, they are also often selectively marked for destruction if the process is too successful. 

Even if we leave all these extenuating circumstances behind, even if you acknowledge the humanity of your artificially created children, and desire them all to survive and be born, does that justify the selfish act of suspending them in limbo? Does it justify creating a buffer of multiple babies out of the statistically-supported fear that less than half of them actually will survive? 

There is, perhaps, somewhat of a gray area here in which one might make a moral case for creating and implanting only one embryo at a time, simulating the circumstances of most natural pregnancies. But even then the question becomes: where does it end? A single embryo created through IVF has only a 47% chance of surviving a pregnancy. That's about twice the usual risk to the embryo as in a natural pregnancy, which is why so many parents choose--and many doctors advise-- to create and implant multiple babies at a time. 

Every child, from zygote to newborn and beyond, is a unique and beautiful creation. IVF cheapens that creation by causing society to value them less, and view them as products rather than people. Children created through IVF are of the same worth as every other child created in the image of God. They are not potential children, they are children. Children created to become essentially the unwitting subjects of a lab experiment. The question posed by this experiment: will this baby live or die?

Human lives are not ours to control and manipulate. The humanity of IVF babies demands dignity. A pro-life person knows this. A Christian knows this. 

So we cannot be casual about IVF anymore. We can't be casual about the commodification of life. We should be champions of selflessness and patient endurance of trials, even the heartbreaking trial of infertility. We should be champions of adoption--including the adoption of the children who have spent their entire lives frozen in test tubes, waiting for the chance to be born. 

If you are struggling with infertility, my heart hurts for you in your struggle. God's heart hurts with you. But suffering has never justified injustice. Together we should fight to create a world in which the value of every human life is fully acknowledged. 

We have a daughter!

The ultrasound confirmed yesterday that our newest family member is a GIRL. She is a stunning little treasure <3

Girl

You have always been precious
to us.
A lyrical sound, a spark of golden light,
a treasure we plucked from 
God's outstretched hand.
To me, your existence is a mystery,
near and far,
illuminated and shrouded,
like meeting a stranger you already know.
Like your mama you will be a girl for a long time,
and then a woman. 
Will you bear your own children
someday?
Will the air deliver lullabies to them
from your own mouth?
The world holds so much new
for you
and it will desire your love,
a love that is already spoken for. 
But you'll see beyond the world
to things unimagined.
In my head you smile beneath bouncy curls.
Wisps of your defiant mane flow outward into thin air,
catching the Sun's beams 
for treasures of your own. 

He will be the sure foundation for your times, a rich store of salvation and wisdom and knowledge; the fear of the Lord is the key to this treasure. Isaiah 33:6

No, you can't be a Christian and be Pro-Choice

Many calling themselves Christians disagree with me. They say any number of well-intentioned things, things which come, ultimately, from a love of the world and a reluctance to divide themselves from it. And the "Pro-Choice Christian" answer sounds good to the world. It sounds like empathy, and understanding, and freedom of choice, and freedom from suffering. It sounds like caring. It sounds like love. 

But it's not the duty of a Christian to reconcile her faith with the world, and it's not indicative of faith in God to seek the world's answers. So in this issue, as with any important question, I'm asking God. What does His word have to say about this situation we find ourselves in? What do I know of God, what does the example of Christ tell me about how I should live my life? 

I know that God is omniscient and omnipresent. I know he sees all of us in our individual circumstances and knows us completely.

I know that God loves His creation, and created humanity to be in relationship with Him. I know that apart from that, we will always be lost, wandering in search of a soul-filling love.

I know that God hates evil, in all its forms. He hates the evil that makes us hurt each other in anger. He hates the evil that causes us to seek our own comfort above anything else. He hates lies, and greed, and unfaithfulness, and selfishness, and disobedience. He hates pain. He hates murder. 

I know that in my own sinfulness I have nothing to offer God. I know that it would be just for me to die in my sins. But I also know that God created a way, in Jesus, for our relationship to be restored, and gave me a shining example, in Jesus, of what that restored relationship should look like. 

I know that Jesus is the perfect Son of God. I know that He commanded me to love God, and love my neighbor. I know that He calls me to turn from my sin and follow Him. I know that He chose a miserable death rather than leave me in my hopelessness--that greater love has no one than this.

What does this tell me about abortion?

It tells me that God is a God of truth, not of easy answers. It tells me that the truth is sometimes, if not often, painful. It tells me that all the suffering we experience in this world is because of sin, and because of the evil that lurks in our own hearts. It tells me that my own heart is untrustworthy, and if I listen to every natural instinct I have, it will lead me to destruction. 

It tells me what love truly looks like: 

It is unconditional. 

It is self-sacrificing.

It is moved by compassion. It does not rejoice in the suffering of others, but endures pain in order to do right by others. 

It rejects fear, rejects selfishness, rejects simple and quick solutions. It forgives even when the offense is unpardonable. It forgives even the evil of abortion, if indeed abortion is evil.

God is Love. These three words are true, yet this simple phrase is used by many to justify selfish and sinful acts. But if I truly believe God is love, then I must trust that His answer to this question is better than the one I'd come up with on my own. I must trust that no complexity can excuse evil. I must trust that He sees the situation in its wholeness, and knows what it requires better than I or anyone ever could.

God sees every struggling mother. He sees her in her pain, in her terror of the unknown, in her hopelessness and doubt. He sees the woman he knit together in her own mother's womb, fearfully and wonderfully, grown into a mother herself and fearful of what that means. God sees in her the broken heart that has led her to this choice. He sees in her the possibility for strength, bravery, and beauty that He will give to her, if only she could reach out her hand and take it. 

And God's sight does not end where ours does, with the veiled outline of new life, impossible to grasp fully because we are so limited by our eyes. God sees the new life budding inside every mother's womb. He sees a new child, one whose every cell is numbered and known by Him. He sees that child, in all its unfathomable smallness, and loves him or her with the same love that caused Him to visit a womb Himself, in the form of the baby Jesus. 

If you believe what God has said, that humankind has been created in His very image, then you must include every human being in that image, as He does. God--Love--does not look with disdain on the smaller, the weaker, the more vulnerable. He does not dismiss the humblest of us. He does not ask of what use we can be to him, in our imperfection. He does not measure our worth by what we can be, or what we will become; rather, He measures it by what we are--loved with an eternal, unconditional love, and created in that love to be a part of His story. 

Created, in that love, to be saved and redeemed for no other reason than that it pleases Him to love us fully and completely.  

Jesus gave his life for us when we were at our worst. He called us friends as we sat around his table, plotting to betray him. He chose us and saved us, rather than leave us in our misery. How can we, then, as recipients of that incredible grace, demand that our very children die for us when they are at their most innocent? How can we deny them the same love that Christ demonstrated for us when he went to the cross? How can we take the life, in brutal and murderous fashion, of a precious human being, created in God's own image? 

There is nothing, nothing of the strong, faithful, self-sacrificing Christ in abortion. There is nothing of Him in the fear and pain and selfishness that drives many women to seek the destruction of their offspring. There is nothing of faith in that choice. Abortion is the very antithesis of the life-giving hope that Christ has given us.

So no, you cannot be a Christian and support abortion. 

You can wrestle with the complexities of human suffering, you can question how best to help those who are struggling with unplanned pregnancies. But you cannot claim Christ and abortion in the same breath without lying about one of those things. 

This question will divide us. It will separate us from the world, and sometimes from each other. But that is what Jesus said would happen as time went on--those faithful to Him would be revealed by their fruits. And abortion is not a fruit of Jesus' death-conquering Life. It is a fruit of Satan, of sin,
and of the evil, corrupted world we live in. 

Anything that is of darkness is not of God. And as followers of Christ, we are called to love only the things of God. To call an evil thing good, to make room for it in your heart, to support and cheer for it, is to deny Jesus. Without Jesus we walk in blindness, but once we have been given the Spirit of new life in Him, and our eyes are opened to the truth, we are still accountable to love and seek that truth. 

A choice, then, lies before us. Faith or fear? Hope or cynicism? Jesus, or abortion? It can't be both. Choose wisely.