A Story of Grapes, Giants, and Homebirth (Part 3)
"Devin, if my glucose challenge comes back positive, what do you think about doing a homebirth with Carly's doctor?"
I remember exactly where we were, crossing the street near the Jerusalem's Shuk (market).
My husband was silent.
"Ok. You don't have to answer right away. Think about it and let me know."
I had not thought much about our birth plan much until it was time to do the test. Early in the pregnancy, I contacted a homebirth midwife, and she suggested waiting until I got my results before coming under her care, so that I would not be disappointed if I could not birth at home with her. At that point, I decided to lay the issue aside until later.
Going in for the test was quite disappointing, in itself. In the time since Aviel was born, I had been studying and found an number of sources that questioned the accuracy, and even safety of of Glucose Tolerance testing. Since Aviel was born with such great blood sugar, and a normal size, I honestly wondered if I had been misdiagnosed and was open to alternatives, such as the A1C, or checking blood sugar for two weeks, even substituting jelly beans for glucola. I went in prepared to talk to my doctor about other options, and was shocked to learn that since I had a previous diagnoses on my records, I'd actually have to jump straight to the 3 hour Challenge. He was not willing to write a hafnaya (order) for anything else.
We weighted options - refusing all together, fighting and trying to find a doctor who would world with me... In the end, I was still sick from the hyperemesis gravidarum, which (for me) is aggravated by stress, and it was not going to improve my birth choice options to refuse the test. The only benefit would be not drinking the nasty and not good for us glucola.
So I did the test.
While I was sitting in the lab, I remembered the day Carly told me about the homebirth doctor and had hope that my options might remain fairly open if I "failed" the test.
And failed - did I.
My numbers were higher this time, than they had been with Aviel.
I was frustrated, and my husband still wasn't sure about the homebirth option.
Lord, why do you let this happen to my body? If I didn't have this condition, we could go to the natural birthing center at the hosptial, and not have tension in the marriage. It would be so much easier. He whispered...
Because I have something so much better for you.The Lord's response to me was clear, so I clung to Romans 8:28, trust that he would work all of this to the good of our family and our baby!
***
Being third trimester, it was time to start making some plans. With Devin's agreement to at least have a meeting with the doctor, I made a phone call - and one that circumstantially held two confirmations that we were headed in the right direction.
"When are you due?" The doctor asked on the phone.
"November 15."
"You are exactly 30 weeks today. That's when I usually first start working with my patients." That was number 1. And number 2. "I'll be in Jerusalem tomorrow, how about if I stop by?" Said my out of town doctor.
I was elated. And that much more so when Devin returned from the Shuk (market) that day with these babies:
 | |||||
Its hard to tell exactly how huge the grapes are, but they are certainly the largest we had ever purchased. I was awed. What I didn't share with the world is that I had been praying over this baby's birth, the grapes gave me a great deal of hope that we'd have a wonderful homebirth.
Following along with Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth's series on Joshua at that time, I also had an indication that if the Lord was good to grant grapes, then we might also face giants. As the giants arose, so would my faith, as I trusted the Lord that this was His plan.
Related Posts:
A Story of Grapes, Giants, and Homebirth
Part 1
Part 2
Something Special (Aviel's birth story)
Comments
Post a Comment