Throwing out the Birth Plan

Okay, so I guess I'm on a TLC kick!


Another show that has had an impact on my life is "A Baby Story" (and  Baby's First Day, Bringing Baby Home, One Born Every Minute). Seriously, what woman with cable who wants to have kids has not been entralled with this show?? I remember watching at the very beginning, when we were still ignorant of our coming struggle and carried carefree  thnking about baby-making. I watched women get wheeled into the hospital or hop into a tub at home...and a few hours later, which translated into minutes on screen, there was a beautiful baby. I just expected my life story to be the same...because...this was supposed to be real life, right? If hundreds of women had this experience, why shouldn't I? This show, at first, only added to my assumptions that having babies would be among the easiest and most natural tasks of my life. I would also use this show as a research resource. I started to make my birth plan based upon what I saw and others' experiences.  Pretty soon I had it written out and carefully stored in a safe place, ready for when the time came. My birth plan, like so many others', when right out the window when the **** hit the fan. I didn't realize at the time that my birth plan included a hidden assumption -- that at one point in the near future I would be pregnant.


There have been times when I have turned the channel in anger, envy or disgust -- not disgust with the women but with my current situation. there have also been times when I have cried myself dry watching the beautiful miracle of life and the courage of these strong and fearful women. Throughout all these years, I still watch this show all the time. When you love babies, you can't help but be drawn to this miracle.


What I have learned most from this show, in spite of the ache I feeland the heaviness of my empty arms, as I watch someone else's baby born, is that I have to throw out the birth plan. Just as the labor and delivery these women experience may be very different from what they had planned, my plan was very different from this "labor" of waiting. I could yell and scream to "Stick to my plan!!" but I would be missing out on some amazing things happening around me -- relationships strengthened, relationships weeded out, lessons in trust and love....And like those women in labor whose plans are destroyed, it may be for my own wellbeing. At times, God is like the OB/GYNwho is calling it like it is: "Your plan is not going to work now. You need to listen to me. I am trying to save your life."


It's not fair and it is disappointing, just as an emergency C-section is disappointing and extremely unfair. It's just not the way we planned. It's not the way it was "supposed" to happen and that is something legit to grieve. But God will redeem it and God will use it for good, for his glory, in his time.


As I continue to watch this show sometimes I laugh, other times I sob, and still others I turn the channel. Slowly I begin to see that my story is different, not because I did something wrong ot that I wouldn't be a good mom. My story is just different. Life happens. I also see that I have more in common with these women than I had thought.  Our plans have changed, most often against our wills and without our consent. And here we are: just women, after all the dust settles, picking up the pieces together and trying to figure out how to live in this new plan, because of this new plan, in spite of this new plan.