Our Baby's Birth

Recently I have been dwelling on the birth of our baby. Here in America there is so much hype leading up to the birth of a baby. Will I have a "natural" birth? Will I have an epidural? Will I have a home birth? Will I use a midwife or an OB? In the case of our biological children, we had little choice. I had to have 3 c-sections. Andrea was breach; Noah was too big; and Nathan was our 3rd which prevented us from trying it, but he was too big anyway. The kids, especially Nathan, love to yell, "That's where I was born!" when we drive past the hospital. I will never forget the days that they were born. Never. They are so engrained in my memory and will forever be a part of me. This picture of me is when they were closing me up after Nathan was born. I am looking over at the nurses trying to see what they are doing with my baby. Notice the steril environment and how many peole are caring for me. This picture shows only 3, there were several more.

This is beautiful Andrea. Our firstborn. Perfectly formed in every way.This is Noah after he was born. Look how huge and handsome he was. They busily cleaned him up for us.This is Nathan. Precious little guy is recovering from his birth. So tiny and yet big for a newborn.

All of these pictures make me think of precious little "B" in Africa. According to her paperwork, she was born on May 3. What was that day like? For us I can remember what WE were doing that day. In the morning I was busy with my preschool class. It was the last week of school for us so we were working on the letter Z. That evening our family went out to Texas Roadhouse to celebrate MY birthday which is May 4. I remember where we sat. It was family night and there was a magician there doing tricks for the kids. They went nuts trying to figure out how he was doing the tricks. We had a wonderful evening together; not even realizing that our baby was being brought into this world on the other side of the globe. What was her birth experience like? I'm sure the environment was not sterile like the pictures above. I'm pretty sure there wasn't a skilled doctor helping her out of her birthmother. Did her mother have access to medical care? Did she have trouble delivering the baby? Here is a picture of a chair commonly used to birth babies in Africa. Did she use one of these?
I cannot imagine what this young girl went through to deliver our precious little angel. I look forward to the day when I can talk with her in person and learn about the experience she had. What a sacrifice of love she made for this little baby.