Life in The Family International

He came a few days late, but MY BABY IS HERE!

He has all his little fingers and toes, is perfectly angelic when he sleeps and wicked when he cries. I don’t want to get into the gross details of how the delivery went, but I do want to say that I was blessed with a perfect, 100% natural, home delivery. Gabe and Kina (nearby home) were kind enough to allow us to use their facilities, and sweet Ginny coached me all the way through it. Aside from Ginny, I had a team of 2 midwives who helped with the delivery for 50% of their usual fee and they watched over me like angels. They are from the Mexican chapter of the LaLeche League. One was a very motherly type, always speaking faith and wearing a calm smile. The other one, of Indian descent and speaking the local dialect, was more serious and efficient, which also transmitted a spirit of peace.

Labor was about 11 hours from start to finish, and not once did I feel it was too much to bear or that I couldn’’t make it. I was able to walk when I wanted to walk, sit, stand and I had the baby on a birthing stool, which was much more comfortable than lying down. I’m a pretty aranoid person by nature, so it wasn’t easy for me to choose the midwives & home delivery over the “safety” of a hospital. But when I prayed about it the Lord gave me a real peace and assurance that He’’d take care of everything for me, and boy He sure did. I think my parents were a bit shocked that I chose a home delivery since where they live (Chile) most everyone has hospital deliveries and it just seems the safer more normal thing to do. But Mexico has one of the highest cesarean rates in the world–—40% in public hospitals & 90% in private ones (USA is 26%, I think) so I wanted to be in an environment where I was more in control and less likely to fall prey to my phobias and paranoia. The great thing is that the Lord was more in control than any of us could ever be and He did all things well.

Now I just have to get the little bugger to sleep through the night and I’m on easy street!

…except that I still don’t have a name for him.

After many years of doing office-type missionary work, Florecita is testing her hand as a field missionary. She is currently the counselor of a group of teenagers, does outreach, restaurant singing… and anything that is needed to help her center and its projects keep momentum. She is also an aficionado of photography and hopes that with it she can show the world a little more of The Family International, its projects, and the wonderful people in it. More about Flo

This entry was posted on Monday, April 30th, 2007 at 12:29 pm and is filed under Me. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.