I want to share a couple thoughts about being a part of the birth of my five children. Our society has diminished and marginalized the role of the male in the family for many years. I have felt this "discrimination" for lack of a better term in my almost 8 years of being a father. I usually extend grace when it happens, and sometimes I will even speak up and defend the role and responsibility of a father who dearly loves his wife and children and wants God's best for them. However, it is in childbirth where my role as husband and father is most marginalized. Julie is amazing and is a WARRIOR, delivering 5 children with 4 of them naturally because that is where God has led us in our journey with Him concerning her pregnancy and caring for our unborn children. (Caroline was breech and high risk because of a car accident during Julie's pregnancy with her and ended up having a c-section.) Julie is phenomenal and amazes not just me, but every set of doctors and nurses who gets the privilege of watching her and walking with her through each subsequent delivery.
That being said, I love it when I meet a husband and father who wants to be present with his wife in delivery, and not just present but informed and engaged, fighting with her and for her through this most difficult of events in a woman's life. I love going through labor with my wife and partner in this life. I have to be on my game: always positive, always encouraging, caring for her needs and desires. I try to ask informed questions of the hospital staff who so quickly run over a husbands thoughts or feelings, making sure they are considering what is best for mom and the baby and not just what is easiest or most convenient for them. Also, the fear of litigation in our "sue happy society" hangs over their heads constantly and clouds everything they do, not always to the benefit or comfort of the mother and child. Moreover, childbirth is not a sickness that needs to be fixed like every other reason people go to the hospital. It is about welcoming a young life into this world through the age old initiation process of birth. It is hard, is messy, it is unpredictable, it is exhausting, and then it is exhilarating with no two births going exactly the same. Each time I go through this with Julie I feel as if we have been in a fox hole together in some intense battle, fighting hand to hand against the enemy and have come through it victorious and with our bond of love and trust even stronger than before.
She would say that my role and presence with her in labor and delivery is essential and she could not do what she does without me. I don't know what most other dads are doing or not doing and claim ignorance in this area. But it saddens me that some people's initial response to my passion for this and for my role in this process is to diminish and demean. I am a stand up guy, and I will always encourage husbands, fathers, brothers, and sons to get in "the fight" and to battle for and with those whom God has entrusted into their care. I have been through 5 huge childbirth battles with Julie and she bears the scars from the wounds of the battle. But, she knows that I will fight for her and with her to the end. I hope that the trust that I have built with her and continue to build, will allow and encourage her to continue to live in peace and to follow even more fervently after that which God has laid on her heart and is calling her to.
If you are ever tempted to do so, please try to catch yourself and don't diminish our role as husbands and fathers. In so doing, we only continue to perpetuate the sickness which has infected young men and boys with each passing generation who hear this garbage and end up fulfilling it themselves. Ironically, their withdrawal ends up hurting each forthcoming generation of young women, our daughters, who would love a man in their life who would jump in and defend and fight for them in whatever way possible and as God may lead a man to do so. This night, I sleep in peace. Our oldest three are staying with Grandma Jan for a couple days and I am watching our little Zeke at home and loving it. Julie is being pampered this evening in the hospital by the caring staff and I shall see her and my Sweet Little Selah again in the morning.
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