PODCAST TRANSCRIPT | EPISODE 332: Help! I’m Terrified of Needles and Childbirth! Part 2

LIFE TO THE FULL w/ Nancy Campbell

EPISODE 332: Help! I’m Terrified of Needles and Childbirth! Part 2

Genevieve continues the stories of her births, each so different, many of them traumatic, and yet God showed His faithfulness to her and brought her through in victory. You will be amazed and yet so encouraged.

Announcer: Welcome to the podcast, Life to The Full, with Nancy Campbell, founder and publisher of Above Rubies.

Nancy Campbell: Hello, ladies! Here we are again, and Genevieve is with me again today. She is going to continue sharing the story of her births. Well, we’re up to number two, Genevieve! What happened this time?

Genevieve: Thank you for having me on again. When we were talking last week, we were discussing how, as a child I was so scared of needles and childbirth. But the Lord worked through that to help me trust Him, and to acknowledge that God is God, and He is good, and His plan is good.

But I still had in me a little bit of a complaining spirit about why we had to be made like this as women and why we had to go through this messy, inconvenient, painful thing called “childbirth.” But nevertheless, I submitted to God in this area, and decided to trust Him.

Well, with my first, with Natalie, I had a post-partum hemorrhage. I bled nearly three liters and ended up in the operating room with a D&C and large transfusions. After her birth, I really had to trust the Lord again and submit all this area to Him, which I did.

Four months later, I found myself pregnant with Caleb. The fear resurfaced again. But you know what, I thought to myself, “This is really a blessing that I can even be pregnant again after what happened to me with Natalie.” So, I really chose to be thankful and grateful to the Lord. I put all that out of my mind and kept moving ahead.

One of the things I did during Caleb’s birth was that I researched post-partum hemorrhage. Just like you were saying last week, just because you hemorrhaged once doesn’t mean you need to hemorrhage a second time. I did some research into what my risk factors were, why I’d hemorrhaged that time, what things I could do to mitigate a hemorrhage in the future.

All that also helped me to have increased confidence. One of the things that happened during Caleb’s pregnancy was . . . I’d had Natalie at a big teaching hospital in Victoria, Australia. After I hemorrhaged, when I was pregnant with Caleb, they really wanted to control his birth. They wanted to have active management of the whole third stage which included immediate clamping of the umbilical cord.

We were really not comfortable with that because we thought by doing that . . . We understood that they were trying to prevent a potential hemorrhage in me, or possibly an ongoing or active hemorrhage in me. But by doing that, they could also potentially cause a hemorrhage in Caleb. This hospital that we’d been at with Natalie was 25 minutes away. Thirty-five minutes away was another little country hospital. We went there and talked to them, and they said, “Oh, yeah, you’ve hemorrhaged once, but it doesn’t mean you're going to hemorrhage again. Of course, you can come here.”

Nancy: Oh, that was good!

Genevieve: “And we don’t need to actively manage the third stage. We’ll just watch and wait. If something needs to happen, we will, but we’re not going to plan on jumping in if it doesn’t need to happen.”

Nancy: You have to search for hospitals and find the right place, don’t you?

Genevieve: I really learned through all my deliveries that you do have to take personal responsibility for your own health and the health of your children, and really advocate for yourself, although there’s also a balance between the help and the wisdom that they have. You need to cry out to the Lord for wisdom, to navigate all those little details of your own unique birth.

Natalie’s delivery, because I’d hemorrhaged with her, this now was complicating Caleb’s pregnancy, because in the lead-up to my birth with Caleb, they now wanted me to go in twice a week and have blood drawn. More needles, so I could have my blood cross-matched so that they could make sure they had enough blood on hand for if I did hemorrhage again. Then, when I went into labor, I had to have two IV lines put, just in case I hemorrhaged, because once you're hemorrhaging, it’s much harder to get a line in afterwards. Oh, boy.

Nancy: You need needles! You never wanted . . .

Genevieve: Needles and childbirth, yes, were very much synonymous for me from this point on. So, during his labor, sadly, those complaining thoughts came back. I remember actually being in labor and thinking, “Oh, again, why does it have to be this way? Couldn’t God have organized it differently?” And particularly evil at this point was the thought, “What is God going to put me through this time?” I knew it was rebellion to complain against God this way, but I just couldn’t get victory. I fought, but it just kept coming back.

Well, Caleb’s birth went very well. I didn’t bleed, and it turned out that having two babies so close together was actually a huge blessing from the Lord. Because I’d hemorrhaged with Natalie, I’d never properly healed after her birth. Because I didn’t hemorrhage with Caleb, I healed wonderfully after his birth, so a lot of things that had been left unresolved, were resolved and healed by Caleb’s birth. It was a real blessing. You just think, “Why was it this way?” But you realize, no, the Lord had a perfect plan, and it was a good plan.

Nancy: Yes!

Genevieve: I was also ashamed of my complaining. I really said in my mind, “I don’t want to do that again.” My vision for childbirth was walking really closely with the Lord through this. This complaining was getting in the way. [laughter] Although I said I don’t want to do it again, actually I did. The next part of my story is about how God’s loving kindness broke me, and I gained victory over my fear-driven rebellious complaining.

My next labor, 16 months after Caleb, I was in labor with Evangeline. Sadly, that rebellious complaining was coming up again during her labor. This whole “Why did God have to make women this way?”

Well, in the lead-up to Evangeline’s birth, I piled on the expectations. Things had gone so well with Caleb’s birth that I . . . the expectations just piled on. I said to myself, “I want to breathe her out. There wasn’t going to be any pushing. I’m just going to breathe her out.” I wanted to have a completely natural childbirth, including the third stage. With all of them, I never had any pain-killing drugs, never had any interference until that third stage where I had third-stage drugs to clamp down your uterus and things.

But this time, I didn’t want to have those either. It was going to be in the hospital, it had to be in the hospital, but I wanted to have a natural, completely natural birth. Despite all my grumblings and my complaining, God gave me the desires of my heart.

Nancy: So wonderful!

Genevieve: When I was in the first stage with Eva, I was getting tired, and I prayed out to God. I said, “Lord, I’m getting tired. Can we go through transition now?” And with the next contraction, I was in transition!

Nancy: Wow!

Genevieve: When I was pushing, I called out to God again and said, “Lord, I’m getting tired. With the next contraction, can she be born?” And bang! With the next contraction, she was born!

Nancy: So wonderful!

Genevieve: It was so amazing. She was 9 lbs. 9 oz. I didn’t tear. I didn’t bleed. God granted me every single desire of my heart. I breathed her out. I hadn’t had any medication for that third stage. You know what, even when I was rebellious, He was faithful. His goodness and kindness just humbled me.

His love broke me. I was finally able to repent of all that rebellious complaining and be free. God was good. His plan for childbirth was good. It was under the curse of sin, you know, but God was able to work it out for good. I was really able to just grab hold of that.

Nancy: I must say something here. Again, as I mentioned in the last podcast, it is true. Because there are many precious mothers, who after a traumatic birth, even as you went through with Natalie, your first, who will say, “I can just never do this again!” But look how God blessed you! No birth is the same! Not one birth is ever the same. Here you had this glorious, natural birth, even after a traumatic birth.

So, dear precious ladies, maybe those of you who had a traumatic birth, know that that’s not the end. God does wondrous things, and God heals our bodies, doesn’t He? Sometimes we get a cut, and it can be pretty bad. But it always heals. When we have things happen on the inside, they heal too.

Genevieve: So, being humbled and broken enabled me to be free. My repentance and freedom from resisting God’s plan came just in time, because my fourth delivery really required me to submit to God’s plan. When I did, He did marvelous things.

Seventeen months after Eva was born, actually I’m having an ultrasound on my due date. The man doing the ultrasound began saying things I think no woman wants to hear right as she’s about to give birth. He’s saying, “Wow, this baby’s got a big head! Oh, my goodness, he’s weighing in at over five kilograms!” This is about 11 lbs. I remember thinking, “Oh, I know that these things are not accurate. This one must be really out!” And “Why would he tell me this at this point?” Anyway, he was a wonderful technician, and I actually really enjoyed going to him.

So then, about six days after that, I was in labor with Joshua. I had the same plan with Joshua. I wanted to breathe him out, but I quickly realized there wasn’t going to be any breathing him out. On that realization, I did the whole pendulum swing. I went from breathing him out to really pushing, like over-pushing, like pushing way too much. He would descend, and then he would pop back up again. He would descend and pop back up again! The contractions sometimes would be strong, and sometimes they would be weak.

Nancy: Talk about every birth being different!

Genevieve: Oh, yes! And this was so discouraging to me, because of not feeling like I was making any progress. I was getting tired. I would look at the clock in the delivery room and say, “OK, Lord, could he please be born withing the next 15 minutes?” And then that 15 minutes would pass, and I’d look at the clock, and I’d say, “Well, how about the next 15 minutes, Lord? Can he be born in the next 15 minutes?” And he wasn’t born in the next 15 minutes.

You know what, God wasn’t giving me exactly what I wanted, when I wanted it, this time. This was a different situation. I realized I did not know how to push this baby out. So I just said, “Lord, please help me. I don’t know what to do.”

And immediately He brought to mind two verses. This was so wonderful. The first verse was: “Be still and know that I am God,” from Psalm 46. It struck me then that it was so odd that I was being told to be still! But you know, I did! I needed to be still a moment.

The next verse was the one from Isaiah 66, which says: “Shall I bring to the time of birth and not cause delivery?” Straightaway I realized, “Oh, yes, every contraction is from God! Those weak ones that I’ve been frustrated by, they’re from God. The strong ones are from God!”

I realized, “Oh, when He sends the strong contraction, I should push in line with that contraction. Give it all I’ve got. Give as much energy as He’s also sending. With those weak contractions, I should rest in them, and not over-push them, and just be guided by Him.” Now we had a plan. It took another one-and-a-half hours but that’s how we did it.

Nancy: Oooh! That’s amazing!

Genevieve: Joshua wasn’t 11 lbs. He 12 lbs. 6 oz.

Nancy: Isn’t that amazing? And you didn’t know you had that big a baby, did you?

Genevieve: No, I did not! He did have a big head. When it came out, it was huge, and it was completely unmolded. All the rest of my babies have had molded heads, you know, the little cone-shape. But not his. It was completely unmolded. And he had one hand up by his face!

Nancy: Really? As well? And you gave birth like that! Isn’t that incredible?

Genevieve: It was incredible. I’ll tell you what, pushing him out quickly, as I had been trying to do, that would have been a disaster.

Nancy: So, listening to God. You know, I have just read a little book about this missionary in India who went out there with great visions to lead so many people to the Lord. Nothing really happened at all. But another missionary came, and he wasn’t going out like she was. He just listened to the Lord; what God wanted him to do in every situation.

She learned, and she began to live that way. Every story in the book is the story of miracles of how, even in impossible situations, she just listened to God. Then He’d tell her. She had to be still, like the first verse was “Be still and listen.” She had to wait and listen. But then God would show her. I thought, “Wow! What a great way to live!” As you did that in childbirth, God showed you. That was wonderful.

Genevieve: His plan worked so beautifully. God really did have a better plan. That was to stretch things slowly. We had picked Joshua’s name already. After his birth, I went back to remind myself about the meaning. You know what it means? “Jehovah delivers.” I was just floored, because, of course, God had literally delivered Joshua.

Nancy: And naturally! Amazing!

Genevieve: Yes! I had the third stage drugs. I did hemorrhage with Joshua, but it was a little over 600 milliliters. We felt like it was a non-event. Considering his size, things had been terrific. Just praise the Lord. It seemed like such a victory to naturally birth such a big boy.

But you know the real victory was in my heart, that I had submitted to God, and to His plan, that I hadn’t been grumbling, I hadn’t been complaining. I hadn’t had any more thoughts of why this had to be this way. You know, when we do submit to God’s plans, He does marvelous things. This was really marvelous.

At this point, I was now really, genuinely grateful for the experiences that God was giving me. Not complaining anymore, but just feeling like . . . I think the reason was, I was drawing near to him through these trials and the difficulties, and He was drawing near to me. The result was just utter joy.

Nancy: So wonderful!

Genevieve: The next birth was another traumatic one. The next part of my story is about how this next traumatic birth brought back that fear again. It became a really debilitating fear. Sixteen months after I delivered Joshua, I’m now delivering our fifth, Josiah.

I was at peace. I was not fearful, not rebellious. Josiah’s birth was very straightforward. He was 8 lbs. 15 oz. He was my smallest. But after he was born, my placenta would not come out, and I was bleeding and bleeding. The doctor in the delivery room tried two manual attempts to remove my placenta. Because I hadn’t had any pain-killing drugs for birth, he did it without any anesthesia. The doctor was able to retrieve most but not all of my placenta. I was still bleeding.

By this stage, they had already begun transfusing me with the blood that they had on hand. They were running out. They only had one unit left and they were faced with this decision: “Do we take you to the operating room with only one unit left, and try to do a D&C, or do we send you back to that big teaching hospital where you had Natalie?”

They decided to send me back to the big teaching hospital. An ambulance arrived, and normally it would take over an hour to get from the little hospital to the big hospital, but it took us less than 30 minutes. Pete and Josiah drove behind us and we left them in the dust.

Nancy: Whoa! They had the siren going for that one then!

Genevieve: Oh, yes! While I’m lying there in the ambulance, I can feel that I’m still bleeding, and that it’s too much. It became sort of a visual thing where I was lying there, and I could see all my emotions, all my mind, just fracture into all these little pieces. I could tell that they’re about to break apart and fly into a million pieces. I was desperate to keep them together, but I didn’t know how to do that.

While I was lying there, I began to think about the hospital I was going to, and how a lot of people at my church worked in the medical field, and how some of them worked at this hospital. I began to wonder whether I’d see them at the hospital. I began to think about how they loved me and how I loved them.

With all that thought of the love of Christ and the love of His people for one another, like all those millions of little parts of my emotions and mind came right back together again and gave me the wherewithal to actually look at this poor nurse who accompanying me to the big hospital. All the staff had actually, literally drawn straws to decide who was going to come with me, because nobody wanted to.

She was scared. She’d drawn the short straw, and she was scared. I was able to turn to her and smile and say, “You know, it’s going to be OK.” But that was the Lord. That was in the midst of that assurance of His love.

When I got to the hospital, the head obstetrician met me in the ambulance bay. He was my favorite doctor at the hospital. He was such a nice man, and this was such a comfort from the Lord, that straightaway I’d been met by someone I know, I’m familiar with.

They took me up to the delivery ward, and I’m surrounded by all these people looking down at me. Who should come into my vision but the midwife who had delivered Natalie! She had heard over the hospital announcement the code blue announcement that I had arrived. She came to see me.

You know, when you've given birth, and that oxytocin is flowing, people call it the “hormone of love,” you fall in love with everybody in the room! You’ve had the baby. Well, I’d fallen in love with her. She was a wonderful woman. She had saved my life with Natalie, and there she was. I was lying there, and my head sort of drifted over to the right. I began drifting away. She called me back, and twice my head just fell to the right. I began drifting away. I was called back twice.

Nancy: She called out loud to you.

Genevieve: Yes, “Genevieve, Genevieve! Come back!” That sort of thing. I was taken to the operating room where they did a D&C. A large piece of my placenta was removed. I lost nearly three-and-a-half liters of blood, which is getting close to a gallon. I got what the hospital records called “massive transfusions.”

Then I was taken into the ICU. That midwife was there again in the ICU. This had taken hours, but she had waited. Her shift had finished a long time ago but there she was again. That felt like a hug from the Lord, familiar faces in the midst of a terrible trial. There she was, just smiling and comforting. It was a really wonderful thing.

Well, after I had Josiah, I was able to debrief both with the doctors at the big hospital, and the doctor at the small hospital. This was a really comforting thing, because they were again able to say, “Hey, this doesn’t mean that you're going to hemorrhage again.”

Nancy: That’s so great. The thing it seems to me, you had wonderful births. It was always the after that was the problem.

Genevieve: Yes. Third stage is my little hill. But they were so good. They all said, “Look, we’ll be happy to have you come back. You’re going to go on to have lots more children.” The doctor, my favorite doctor at the big hospital, he said, “You know, you have beautiful platelets!” You know, the little part of your blood that clots. In other words, he was saying, “You don’t have a bleeding disorder. There are no issues.” Which was just so kind of him to say that.

Nancy: You wouldn’t get that from a lot of hospitals. That was amazing.

Genevieve: They did say, at the little hospital, that they don’t have women after they’ve had their fifth child because they’re not equipped to deal with it. I guess they say it’s more dangerous after your fifth, so I knew I couldn’t go back there. I was always going to be at the big teaching hospital now. That was something I had to reconcile myself to.

But another little tidbit of information I thought may be interesting is that the little hospital also didn’t offer epidurals. That’s because they can’t deal with the c-section full out from an epidural. It was an interesting dynamic there between the two hospitals.

After nearly dying with Natalie, I experienced a lot of sympathy, but after nearly dying with my fifth, I actually felt a lot of antagonism and ill-will. The implied, or the spoken accusation, was how could I nearly die and leave my husband, Pete, with five young children?

This really didn’t make any sense. There hadn’t been any signs of anything amiss before I went into labor. It was as though they didn’t believe that God was sovereign over life or death, or sovereign over opening or closing the womb. Or it was like they would only accept good from Him, and not bad.

At any rate, God used that antagonism for good, actually. In a lot of ways, He used it for good. But one of the ways that He used it for good was to make me begin to consider the perspective of the hospital staff in a new light. I actually began to realize that my hemorrhage history could be intimidating to some hospital staff. This was just a little baby thought at this stage. The Lord was going to grow this thought later. But it was a really good thing, like a good path to be set down.

Well, 19 months later, after delivering Josiah, I was in labor with my sixth. It was September 2015. I’m in labor with Sophie. I again gave my fear to God. I kept seeking to obey Him and trust Him. He had been faithful, and I believed that He would continue to be faithful. As I got closer and closer to her delivery, however, as this reality got closer and closer that childhood fear, exacerbated by the trauma of Josiah’s birth, just came back again. The fear was a real weight, like it was a real physical weight bearing down. I remember saying to Pete at one stage, “I’m just so scared, and I can’t shake it.” It didn’t feel usual for me. I tend to be a fairly . . . I’m not an up-and-a-down kind of a person. I’m fairly stable or whatever the word would be.

But anyway, to deal with the fear, I would go into my room, and I’d read the Scriptures. Some of the Scriptures that were very helpful, there’s that one in Philippians 4:8-9: “Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable, if anything is excellent or praiseworthy, think about such things. Whatever you’ve learned or received or heard from me, or seen in me, put into practice, and the God of peace will be with you.”

Then there’s Psalm 15. I love that whole Psalm, but just to truncate it down, it says: “He who speaks the truth in his heart shall never be moved.” I thought about that as being not fearful but being confident. Then there’s Ephesians 6, of course, which says: “Put on the whole armor of God that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. Stand therefore, having girded your waist with truth.”

I really spent time. When the fear became too big, I’d go into my room, and I would gird myself with truth. I’d written down all these things that were true. I would meditate on God’s Word, and on His promises. Pease would fill my heart and the fear would go.

But as soon as I stood up to go back into the rest of the house, get back on what I needed to do for the day, the fear would just descend again, and the weight of it. I wasn’t able to gain lasting peace. I couldn’t shake that fear. I was having flashbacks too, at this stage, of being in hospital again, of drifting off again. It was Pete, not the midwife this time, calling me back, but this time I couldn’t come back.

Those were just awful flashbacks. I had to push them out of my mind. But God was good, and He’s able to organize everything for good. I wasn’t afraid to die for myself, but there was that thought, an awful thought, that if I died, people might not support Pete because of that antagonism we’d felt. Pete might be left to fend for himself with six children six and under.

That was an awful thought. But we knew God was good. We grabbed hold of that. I wasn’t afraid to die for myself. I just didn’t want to cause that antagonism for Pete by dying. I didn’t ever fully overcome that fear during Sophie’s pregnancy, but I did persevere in deciding to trust God.

Sophie was ten pounds, eight ounces. Her birth is such a story of God’s kindness to a struggling, fearful woman. It happened like this. At 2 AM one morning, I’m asleep in bed, and I have this enormous contraction. It’s like one of these ones that lasts over a minute, and it’s so painful. It’s so all-consuming. All you can think about is just getting through this thing.

I jumped up after that, jumped through the shower while Pete got the car ready to go to the hospital. In the car, I had two more contractions like that. Those were all the contractions I had. Three contractions for the whole labor.

Nancy: Wow!

Genevieve: When I got to the hospital, I was wheeled up to the labor and delivery ward in a wheelchair. I stood up from the wheelchair and my water broke. They said, “Please lie down on the bed so that we can examine you.” I was feeling tired and very grateful to just be able to lie down on the bed for a minute. And whoosh! She just came right out!

Nancy: Whoa! That was it! How wonderful! You hardly knew you were in labor!

Genevieve: Yes, exactly right. It was so amazing. And you know what was so amazing? The part that felt really amazing to me was that she . . . I have big babies. I had gone to a chiropractor who had “mapped” my pelvis, which is term from The Pink Kit which is a New Zealand birthing material. The Pink Kit, great material.

She had mapped my pelvis, which is to say, she had told me what shape my pelvis was, and what the best position would be for opening it up the widest. Every time I labored, I always labored in an all-fours, upright, asymmetrical position to open my birth canal. I knew that lying flat on your back is not optimal for opening your birth canal. I’d heard you can close it by up to thirty percent. So, the fact that this 10 lbs. 8 oz. baby would just shoot right out while I was lying flat on my back was just amazing!

Nancy: How incredible!

Genevieve: I still am amazed by that.

Nancy: And no problems afterwards?

Genevieve: Well, here was me, poor, fearful, traumatized me and God would give me this amazing gift. Well, my placenta was delivered quickly. It was deemed to be complete. I was transferred to the maternity ward, but six hours later, my bleeding picked up. I could feel it.

I asked someone to come and check. I was immediately taken to the operating room where they did a D&C and removed one-quarter of my placenta that was still there. I bled one-and-a-half liters, which is borderline for a transfusion, but I was stable enough where they decided not to transfuse me.

Nancy: Praise the Lord!

Genevieve: Yes. Well, the next part of my story is about how, through a very simple biblical concept, through my next pregnancy I was able to gain complete victory over that fear. So, I’m very excited to share that with you.

Nancy: I think we’ll have to have another podcast! OK?

Genevieve: OK!

Nancy: You’ve got to come back for this, because you've got to hear how to get victory, ladies! Would you like to pray for the ladies this time?

Genevieve: Thank you very much.

“Dear Lord and Heavenly Father, You are such a good God. You are our King and our Lord, and sovereign over everything. You open the womb, and You close the womb. Lord, Your Word is so perfect and complete to help us though all things. The next part of my story really shows that, that in Your Word, You have the answers to all the dilemmas that we have in this life.

“Lord, I would pray for all the ladies pregnant right now, that You would work in them, and help them to be free of their fear, if they have any, just the same as You helped me to be free from mine. I pray all these things in the name of Your precious Son, Jesus Christ. Amen.”

Nancy: Amen.

Blessings from Nancy Campbell

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www.aboverubies.org

Transcribed by Darlene Norris

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