PODCAST TRANSCRIPT | EPISODE 333: Help! I’m Terrified of Needles and Childbirth! Part 3

LIFE TO THE FULL w/ Nancy Campbell

EPISODE 333: Help! I’m Terrified of Needles and Childbirth! Part 3

The final episode of the birthing of Genevieve’s 11 children. Hear how God showed her how to birth her 12lbs. 6 oz. baby, who came forth with his little hand up by his face. Hear how she learned to overcome fear which continually tried to succumb her.

Hear how she learned to PRACTICALLY EXPERIENCE the Scripture that “Perfect love casts out fear.” She faced her greatest fear in her last birth, and yet ended in victory. You will be strengthened and encouraged as you hear her amazing story.

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 today, again with Genevieve, because we haven’t finished her story yet. She’s just about to tell you how she got victory in the last birth that we were talking about. She’s also going to share the rest of her births with us today. I don’t even know yet what’s going to happen until Genevieve shares with us! OK, over to you, Genevieve!

Genevieve: Well, thank you again for having me, Nancy. Just to recap, when I was a child, I was frightened of childbirth. I used to say, “I’m not going to have any children if I get married! I’ll just adopt them all.”

Nancy: And you had this fear of needles!

Genevieve: Yes, I did. The whole works! The Lord just worked in me. I was a Christian, and as I grew and matured, I really began to think that, no if God is a good God and His creation is good, then His plans are good. And so this plan also for childbirth and womanhood is also a good plan. I had some ups and downs at first, just getting onboard with His plan, and how it was all supposed to go and all supposed to run. But the Lord kept leading me back to peace and freedom from fear.

I’ve had 11 pregnancies. With my first, I had a post-partum hemorrhage and nearly died, and with my fifth, another very big post-partum hemorrhage and I nearly died. With my sixth, I also had a post-partum hemorrhage, but it was managed beautifully and was not so dangerous.

But the trauma from the fifth really created a new fear in me as I would get closer and closer and closer to my delivery date that I was really struggling to overcome. I would go into my room, and I would meditate on Scripture and be at peace. Then I’d stand up, and the fear would just wash back over me again.

So, this next part of my story, this is my seventh pregnancy. It’s here that, just through a very simple biblical concept, the Lord finally helped me to gain complete victory over the fear. I’m really excited to share this part of the story with you.

Twenty months later, after I’d had Sophie, I’m now in labor with Adele. Distressing to me was that this fear that I’d experienced, the heavy weight that I’d experienced during Sophie’s pregnancy came back again. Again, I’d meditate on Scripture. I’d gird myself with truth. I’d guard against the lies of the devil, and I’d remind myself of the promises of God. Peace would come and the fear would disappear, but as soon as I’d stand up, the fear would just come right back down and wash over me.

I want to say that doing all those things is still a good strategy. God’s Word is powerful, like a two-edged sword that never returns to Him void. This is something I do to deal with fear most of the time during my life.

But for some reason, for whatever reason, the Lord wanted me to keep digging deeper for a solution to the fear in this instance. Even though I wasn’t able, through that, at that point, to gain lasting freedom from the fear, something needed to be done. Something was done. The Lord was so gracious. I bought a little booklet called Fear by Lou Priolo. I’d never heard of Lou Priolo, but he’s a biblical counselor.

Nancy: How do you spell the last name?

Genevieve: His first name is L-O-U, Lou, and his last name, Priolo, is P-R-I-O-L-O. He’s a biblical counselor, a Nouthetic counselor. He’s written so many wonderful books on people-pleasing, on manipulation, on discontentment, selfishness, and laziness, and all sorts of wonderful things. I love everything I’ve read by him. I’ve absolutely loved it because it’s so practical! He just gets right into the Scripture and pulls out these gems for you.

But in this book on fear, the verse he focused on was: “Perfect love casts out fear.” This is that simple, biblical concept. In his little book, which is probably about 50 pages long, he talked about how he had a fear of the dentist. When he had to go to the dentist, he would break out in a cold sweat. He was so terrified of going to the dentist.

There was this one time where he couldn’t avoid it. He had to go. He thought, “How am I going to deal with this fear?” And he thought, “‘Perfect love casts out fear.’ OK, I’m going to show love.” And he began to think in his mind, “OK, when I get there and I meet with the dentist, and there’s his assistant, and the dental hygienist, OK, how can I show love to these people? Smiling, maybe opening my mouth as wide as it can go.” Whatever the things he thought of.

He found that as he was thinking loving thoughts, the fear just disappeared. I thought, “Oh, yes! I have got to do this too! I’ve got to implement this strategy.” So, I did. As the time for delivering Adele drew nearer and nearer and the fear was descending, I began to think about how specifically to show love to the children and how to show love to Pete.

Pete’s mum was always our support person. She has been our support person at all the births. She’s been there at all of the births, so how to show love to her? I began planning and strategizing how to show love to the doctors and the midwives at the hospital. I tell you what, when love was switched on, fear was just switched off and it stayed off! I was now free! You know, the strategy worked when it came to needles?

Nancy: Whoa!

Genevieve: If I ever had to have my blood drawn, or an IV put in, I would just think about how to show love to that person. The fear would switch off and I wouldn’t be afraid anymore. It worked with regard to the delivery.

So, I went to the hospital in labor with Adele, free of fear. When I got to the hospital, my labor stopped. The anesthetist really struggled to put in the two IV lines that I needed. She couldn’t get them into my hands, so I actually ended up with two IV lines in my elbows. I don’t know if you've ever had IV lines in your elbows, but now I had to hold my arms straight. I couldn’t bend my arms because of the IV lines.

Nancy: How do you hold on to anything?

Genevieve:[laughter] This was really going to hamper my labor and delivery, because I can’t bend my arms. I could have felt really sorry for myself at that point, but I had this new strategy, and I was determined to implement it. I was determined to focus on the staff, to remember that my history (by this stage, I’d had three significant hemorrhages. Out of the six births, four times I’ve hemorrhaged, half the time I’ve ended up in the operating room).

Just to remember that my history can be really intimidating, and to think and plan about how I could make this delivery as pleasant an experience for the doctors and nurses as I could. That was just a great thing. As I thought about that, my labor picked up again. I kept active on a gym ball and made regular trips to the restroom.

Six hours after I arrived at the hospital, my water broke. Same situation as with Sophie. They asked me to hop up on the bed so I could be examined, and she just shot right out! She was 10 lbs. 7 oz., so she was basically the same size as Sophie. I’m just laying there flat on my back, and she just comes right out, born within minutes. Well, the placenta came out quickly and I did not bleed.

Nancy: Praise the Lord!

Genevieve: Yes, I’ve got seven children, eight years and under and this time I can go home and just rest. And then jump right back into the saddle and not have this huge rest time that you need after a hemorrhage. After a couple of weeks rest, I could jump right back into the saddle and be Mom again. It was wonderful.

Nancy: What a wonderful birth!

Genevieve: So, this concept that perfect love casts out fear, I walked that verse then through all the rest of my labors and deliveries. It did the trick. That debilitating fear never came back again.

Nancy: Praise the Lord! That is a wonderful, wonderful . . . What would you call it? Thing for victory! Principle for victory!

Genevieve: Isn’t God a God of victory? I love that. It took persevering. It took being determined to keep trusting Him. He brought that about, and I just love it. My next four labors and deliveries, if you want a theme for the next four, it would be tests to that victory over rebellion and fear, because the next four were not perfect. They had their own challenges, but the Lord was faithful.

Nancy: How wonderful! That is so great.

Genevieve: Fifteen months after I had Adele, I’m now in labor with Katrina. It was very strange. My contractions were completely painless. After hours and hours and hours, being in the hospital, the doctor realized that Katrina was transverse. You can’t give birth to a transverse baby.

Earlier that morning, I’d been lying in bed and my water had broken. This is a little side note. It was the 11^th of September 9-11. As my water is breaking and I had suspected that Katrina was not engaged, I’m thinking, “Oh, dear.” I’m worried, concerned about the umbilical cord coming out with the water. That’s a disaster if that happens. I’m thinking about how it’s 9-11, and an emergency. And I’m thinking, “No! I’m not going to think those thoughts. I’m going to take captive every thought here. This is not going to be an emergency.”

So, I wasn’t in labor, but we decided I needed to be at the hospital anyway, because of the concern of the umbilical cord coming through and my previous history. We got there and they put me on a continual monitoring device. That showed that I was having contractions, but they were completely painless. I didn’t feel any pain with them.

After hours and hours, the doctor came in and realized Katrina was transverse. She immediately went out and organized a team for an emergency C-section. Before she went, I asked her permission to hop up, go to the bathroom, and try different maneuvers to see if we could encourage Katrina into a head-down position. Because my water had broken, they couldn’t do anything manually on my tummy to move her around.

My sister, through the prayer team, texted and said, “Try ‘spinning babies’! Here’s the link!” So, while we’re waiting for the doctor to come back, I’m on the bed, throwing one leg over the other, trying the “spinning babies” techniques. When the doctor came back, she felt for Katrina again, and said, “Hey, this baby’s moved! It’s in an oblique position!” That’s halfway between transverse and head-down.

The doctor began to get really excited. What I heard later, which I didn’t know at this point, was that when she was out in the hallway, she was talking to her back-up doctor and saying, “This lady’s had seven babies naturally. I can’t imagine doing a C-section on this lady!” The other doctor was like, “Yeah, her body knows how to do this! Like they can’t do a C-section on this lady.” I just love that story, because that’s not how you typically think of medical staff.

Nancy: I know! That’s wonderful!

Genevieve: The outcome we got here is one that the midwife later told me, that I wouldn’t have gotten this outcome with any other doctor. But that was so encouraging afterwards, to hear that, that they were gunning for me.

So, she felt Katrina and realized, “Oh, she’s in an oblique position!” She said to me, “You know what I’ll do. I’ll do an internal, and if I can feel her head, then I’ll put you on syntocin, which I think is called pitocin here, and hopefully that would firm up your tummy enough, because after eight babies, everything’s a little floppy.”

Like I’m not really keeping them in a firm head-down position anymore with my tummy. She said, “We’ll see if that works. We’ll see if that can happen.” She did the internal, and felt the baby’s head, put me on the pitocin, and it worked. Katrina swung the rest of the way down into a head-down position.

Nancy: How amazing! Whoo!

Genevieve: What a miracle! The only thing was, Katrina stayed high. We had another situation like we did with Joshua. She would come down, pop back up, come down, pop back up. This was taking a long time. It was a long period of contractions and then pushing. The doctor actually left for a second time to organize the operating room, this time for an instrumental delivery. Her comment when she left was that this was still probably going to end in a C-section.

I negotiated with her for another 35 minutes. I thought in my mind, “How long did this take with Joshua?” I asked her, “Can I have another 35 minutes?” She said, “Yes, as it’s going to take me 15 minutes to organize the operating room so go right ahead.” But I didn’t need the 35 minutes. Katrina was born eight minutes later. It was just such a miracle. From a transverse lie to a natural delivery.

With Katrina’s birth, I had a lot of firsts. I had continuous monitoring, which I’d never had before. I’d always asked for that intermittent monitoring. Katrina ended up with a scalp probe on her head while she was still inside me. They attached a little scalp probe so they could monitor her vitals. I ended up with the induction drug which I’d never been induced before. I’d never had any pain-relieving drugs or induction drugs before.

But it all went well. Technically, I did have a post-partum hemorrhage. I bled about 580 mils, but again it just seemed like absolutely nothing in light of what had happened. We were just over the moon.

Nancy: Another miracle, really. When you think of all the things, you're safe, and all the miracles you had! God was there, doing miracles!

Genevieve: Yes. So, you remember her birthday was 9-11? It was an emergency, but you know, God is bigger than emergencies. It’s so wonderful. Just as a side note, Katrina’s first word was “Oh-oh!” [laughter] We thought it was so funny! “Oh-oh!”

Rather than being resentful for how childbirth had to be this way, after Katrina’s birth, I really found myself very grateful to the Lord for this experience. It was really hard work. It was a lot of hard work. But the doctor coached me through it. She got more energy out of me, more effort than I had ever thought that I’d have to give. I’m just really grateful for those experiences; how they open your eyes, how you gain new understanding about the world, and how things operate. It's really great.

So, sixteen months after Katrina was born, I was in labor with Nadine. Hers was a pretty straightforward birth. She was 11 lbs. She was number nine. At this point, she is my second biggest. She was born, the whole of her, in just one push! The whole thing. It’s pretty amazing.

But after she was born, I began bleeding and bleeding. The doctor was a very young woman, but she stayed calm. She was terrific. She followed the plan that had been drawn up. We’d made a plan for if I ever hemorrhaged again, this is how it’s all going to go. She began following the plan.

I think most women when they are in labour, for the third stage, they get syntocin, which is like pitocin. Well, she skipped that. She went straight to the syntometrine, which is like the next step up. She also gave me ergometrine, which I think here is called methergine. She gave me tranexamic acid, and misoprostal, which I think they call here cytotec. Then she gave me carboprost, which here is called hemabate.

When she went to give me the carboprost, she actually stopped and came and asked my permission. She almost seemed to be very apologetic about even suggesting giving me the carboprost. It was described to me as “the big guns” and having some unpleasant side effects. The side effects were described as diarrhea, but they would give me something to deal with the diarrhea. So I never had diarrhea because of the two drugs meeting in the middle. We gave her permission to give me the carboprost.

After she gave it to me, I experienced what I understand to be a rare reaction. I began burning up. If you felt my skin on the outside, I was cold to the touch. But on the inside, I felt hot. The thermal effect was just hellish. I felt like I was overheating. I couldn’t have any blankets on me. I couldn’t have any sheets on me.

Nancy: That was the effect of this drug?

Genevieve: Yes. I couldn’t have Nadine anywhere near me. The heat from her skin was too overwhelming. I couldn’t have anybody touching me. All of this just exacerbated the distress of the overheating. I couldn’t move. I became desperate to know how long this was going to be in my system.

The only relief I got was being stroked by a wet cloth. Pete and his mom would wet cloths. If they put them on me, I’d begin saying, “Get it off! Get it off!” Like I just couldn’t handle it. They had to actually stroke me, because that would create a cool breeze across my skin. It was the only thing that provided any relief.

This reaction subsided after three hours. Three hours, but my bleeding stopped. It stopped just below 900 mils. I never had to go to the operating room. I didn’t have to have a D&C. It was hellish, but it was worth it, to be healthy, to be strong, to have the bleeding stop before you get so weak.

I actually learned later that carboprost is given to women to induce second-trimester abortions. Every now and then I think about women in that situation. I think about, imagine going in to have your own baby killed, and you end up with a reaction like that where you feel almost like you're in hell. Imagine.

That causes me, every time I think about it, to just pray for women. I just say, “Lord, if there’s anyone going through that right now, turn them to You. Use that experience to pull them to You.” That also makes me glad that I’ve had that experience, because through all these experiences, God has grown me. He’s opening my eyes to things. He’s giving me understanding. He’s increasing my understanding. He is good. All His ways are good.

So, after Nadine’s birth, I was a little bit discouraged and down. I was still in the hospital. That’s three days of being in the hospital. It was all still too new and raw to be feeling like, what if I have to go through that again? Who should walk in, who should walk in, but Annie Barnes? Annie Barnes was assigned to be my midwife. She ran Above Rubies in Australia for a few years. I didn’t know that.

Nancy: Yes!

Genevieve: I didn’t know that. I didn’t know who she was. I didn’t know who she was when she walked in.

Nancy: She was up in Queensland when I knew her. Now she’s down in Victoria with you.

Genevieve: Yes! Yes! So, there I am, and she walks in. She didn’t know who I was at this stage, but she had read my file, saw that this was my ninth child, saw that we had declined vaccines.

Nancy: That’s right! I remember when they left Queensland and went down to Victoria. Actually, they were trying to get out of Australia too. Anyway, carry on!

Genevieve: Yes! So, she starts a conversation with me. I think one of the questions she asked was, “Did we homeschool?” And, of course, we did homeschool. For some reason, I don’t know why I did this, but I mentioned my parents, Craig and Barbara Smith, who ran the Home Education Foundation in New Zealand.

She just starts laughing! She says, “I visited them! I’ve visited them in their home in New Zealand!” I’m thinking, “My home? My childhood home? This stranger to me has been in my home, like she knows me then?” It was so wild. I don’t usually consider hospitals to be places to meet like-minded people.

But Annie’s conversations over the next two days, as she was caring for me, and caring for Nadine, were just like a hug from the Lord. They pulled me up from being discouraged and feeling down. Only God could have organized that. Praise God again for how He does things. He’s always so interesting in how He does things.

Nineteen months later, I was in labor with Laney. She’s number ten. This is July 2021. The covid vaccine and all that had started in March 2021 in Australia. We began thinking, “Oh boy!” With my hemorrhage history, if I had another post-partum hemorrhage and had to have a transfusion, any blood I got would very likely be from a covid-vaxed donor.

We began thinking about this. We did a lot of research. We did a LOT of research, and we found that Pfizer had done this study in which they found that in the covid vaccine, at least the Pfizer and the Moderna ones, you've got the RNA. It’s encapsulated with the fat (lipids). That’s in the vaccine, and when that goes in, the Pfizer study showed that that goes into all different organs in your body, especially in a short period after you've been vaccinated. And it’s found in your blood in quite high quantities.

We thought, “Hm, if it’s like that, and somebody who’s just had a vaccine donates blood, then if I was given that blood, then that RNA in me could teach my body to produce the spike protein. Proteins accumulate in breast milk. On the Vaccine Adverse Events Reporting System, I was reading a lot of reports from women who’d been vaccinated, that their breastfeeding babies were having intestinal bleeding, which putting two and two together, was from the vaccine.

We saw that there were risks, both to me and to Laney, if I was to receive blood from someone who had been vaccinated. We didn’t know how to quantify the risk. It was sort of an unknown risk. We were really desirous to mitigate it if we possibly could.

I talked to the Australian Red Cross, who are the people who draw blood in Australia. I talked to the local hospital. When I talked to the hospital, I talked to the blood bank, I talked to the hematologist. I talked to a lot of the obstetricians and the head obstetrician. They were all fascinated to hear that research that I just described to you.

The hospital, at least, was very apologetic, but they couldn’t facilitate direct donations of blood from unvaccinated family and friends. The Australian Red Cross put their foot down, “No, no way. We cannot facilitate that.” It felt like we’d done everything we could. We had tried to mitigate this risk. We tried to do everything we could. Now all we could do was leave it in the Lord’s hands. Do you know that it is such a great place to be!

Nancy: Yes.

Genevieve: I’ve been in that place now so many times in my life, where you just get to a point where, “OK, Lord, I’ve done everything I can. Now it’s up to You, and I’m just going to leave it there. We’re going to trust You and see how this goes.” 

What He did was pretty amazing. He gave me an amazingly straight forward birth, with absolutely minimal bleeding. Probably 300 mils, maybe less. It was so minimal. I left the hospital the next day. I’d never spent such a short period of time in a hospital before. It was a huge answer to prayer.

Nancy: God was protecting you.

Genevieve: And you know what? Once again, I had this prayer team. They were praying, praying, praying, during that whole birth. They understood. They were all people who hadn’t taken the vaccine themselves, as well. They were very interested, very desirous to pray when I was in labor. They were so kind.

Nancy: Oh, God is so good. That was your last birth in Australia.

Genevieve: My last birth in Australia, because 22 months later, Prentiss was delivered in May 2023. It was December 2021, that we moved over here. Now in May 2023, Prentiss was delivered. We moved to Tennessee, just down the road and around the corner from you! [laughter]

This time, in Tennessee, Blood Assurance here, and the local hospital were all willing to facilitate direct donations of blood from unvaccinated family and friends.

Nancy: Oh, praise the Lord!

Genevieve: It was amazing. It’s a really weird thing to be in this situation, contemplating asking people if they would give you some of their blood. I was so embarrassed. I did not want to have to ask anybody. But people ask you how you’re doing and what are you dealing with in life. We would describe the research we were doing and things. Enough people said, “Well, if you need blood, I’ll donate to you!”

Nancy: How wonderful!

Genevieve: I never had to ask anybody. The Lord cares about things, even those funny little things on your heart.

Nancy: How did that work? They would go to the hospital, and they would keep it especially for you, if you needed it?

Genevieve: Yes. Blood Assurance has a direct donation coordinator. They actually have someone who coordinates this. I opened up a file with her. She gave me a number. I gave that number to all the people. We weren’t collecting platelets. We were collecting plasma, and we were collecting red blood cells. Those will last 42 days. I wanted to cover the two weeks before and after my due date. We figured out a time to ask everybody to donate their blood. Then it takes three days to be tested.

I had arranged to labor in a little county hospital just outside of Nashville. I was over 39 weeks. I was getting really close to my due date when the head anesthetist at the hospital learned about me and my history. He said, “She cannot come over here. There is no way she can deliver here.”

This was, as you can imagine, very, very distressing. You’re emotional enough at 39 weeks, so that was not a fun phone call. I was over 40 weeks when I met the head obstetrician at the bigger Nashville hospital. An ultrasound was done, and when this head obstetrician walked into the room, he just looked at me. He was a big man, a tall man.

He said, “You’re not going to like what I have to say, but you can only deliver at this hospital if you agree to a C-section in the morning.” The Lord was now bringing me face to face with one of my biggest birthing fears, which was a C-section. But He’d been working in my heart, leading up to this.

Nancy: So, it didn’t matter what happened. He just wouldn’t do anything unless it was a C-section.

Genevieve: No. It was because the ultrasound showed that Prentiss was over 13 pounds.

Nancy: What??

Genevieve: And the ultrasound showed that I had a heap of fluid. I guess a lot of times this stuff can come about because of diabetes. I’ve never had gestational diabetes, and I didn’t this time either. She was just a big baby. But the Lord had really been working in my heart. So, my prayer team, I have a list of prayers that I have them all pray—that I won’t hemorrhage and that I won’t have to have a C-section, and I won’t tear.

But as the weeks got closer and closer to my delivery date, I reached out to one friend, and I said, “Would you forget all of that, and just pray that I would be submitted to whatever God has planned here?” I think the Lord already had put it in my heart. He was preparing me that this may be necessary.

The C-section doctor was also kind enough to inform me that no other doctor in Nashville would take me either, under any other circumstances, unless I agreed to an immediate C-section. There we were. We had no other choice.

Again, same situation as with Laney. I’ve done all I can. It’s now in the Lord’s hands, and this is what He’s doing. My only choice is to believe that this is His plan for good, for Prentiss and me. You know, it was. I really just needed to trust God. I had no other options.

Well, as I was wheeled into the operating room, that cooler of the unvaccinated blood was wheeled into the operating room with me. It was quite a procession! All of us! And you know what, I wasn’t terrified, thanks to the prayers of the prayer team, I was able to be at complete peace. I always thought I’d be terrified about having to have a C-section. I’d had on my birth plan all these years, if I have to have a C-section, just give me a general. I don’t want to be awake.

But the anesthetist had explained about how it would really be so much better if I’d agree to a spinal or an epidural. So, I agreed. It was just a couple of hours before I was wheeled in, where I was remembering a difficult time in my life before, which was going to be a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, this escaping Australia as you mentioned.

I’d decided, “It would be too bad to travel all around the world in a state of fear. Let’s enjoy this! Let’s have a sense of adventure here.” The Lord helped me remember that. Right before I was wheeled in, I thought, “Hey, hopefully this is just going to be a once-in-a-lifetime thing, the C-section. Let’s have fun! Let’s enjoy it.” And it was. It was an absolute blast.

Nancy: Wow! [laughter]

Genevieve: You wouldn’t think it. All the things I’d been afraid about were all OK. I was told later by some midwives; they said that the group of anesthetists and doctors and technicians that I had in that group were the absolute A-team. They really were wonderful. I wasn’t terrified. I was able to go in with a sense of adventure. I wanted to be able to enjoy this once-in-a-lifetime experience. And I did. It was wonderful.

I was way more mobile after that C-section than I’d been after a lot of my births. I was much stronger afterwards than most of my other births. Which is not to say, I don’t want to advocate for C-sections, but I just want to say, if you're in that situation where you have to have one, God can work good through that. I healed really well.

Prentiss was not 13 lbs. She was 12 lbs. 12 oz. She was pretty big. And very healthy. I have to say that looking at her after she was born, I did think, how could I have ever birthed her? There was no way. And I didn’t hemorrhage.

Nancy: Oh, you didn’t hemorrhage! Praise the Lord.

Genevieve: All that donated blood was given to other people, which was fantastic.

Nancy: You’ve shared with us all these births, and you faced scary situations, but God has come miraculously through every time! But in the midst of all this, you haven’t actually shared, what about motherhood itself? Wow! Tell me how you feel about motherhood. You could have stopped with one. Many women would have stopped at one, but you kept going!

Genevieve: Apart from wifehood, motherhood has been the most fulfilling thing I’ve ever done, without a doubt. I want to tell you, Nancy, God has shown Himself trustworthy over and over and over again. The message of my story really is this—put your trust in God. He will prove Himself trustworthy to you too.

I want to speak to your listeners that it may not always look like what you expect, or what you hoped for. My birthing history is not one that most women dream about. My experiences have caused me to trust in God and to draw near to Him. Consequently, He has drawn near to me.

If I could choose to go back and not have those experiences, I wouldn’t do it, because I wouldn’t want to miss out on the joy and the love and the closeness to the Lord I’ve developed through these difficult experiences. He is so good. He is so faithful. He is so trustworthy. If you are weighed down with debilitating fear and scared like I was at many points during my journey, remember this: “True love casts out fear.”

From being a twelve-year-old who was so scared of childbirth that I said I’d never have any children, to drawing near to the end of my childbearing years, as I assume I am, and having delivered 11 children, from Natalie, my eldest (15 years old), to my youngest at 16 months, the children are an absolute delight. It really has been the most fulfilling thing that I’ve ever done.

I’m so glad that I’ve been able to put my trust in Him, that His plan is the best, and that He’s carried me through and shown me that this is absolutely the case. It hasn’t been easy. It’s been inconvenient and messy and painful at times.

But what’s the end result? Eleven souls to raise for the kingdom of God. By God’s grace, in one hundred years, those eleven children might be a thousand descendants, who by God’s grace will be faithfully building God’s kingdom. All because the Lord was powerful to work with a scared woman and take that fear and turn it to trust and love. Thank you for letting me share this story of the Lord’s faithfulness with you and your listeners.

Nancy: Oh wow, that makes me want to cry! So amazing! Thank you. Thank you, Genevieve, for sharing that. We look at your beautiful family and it’s only the beginning of what God is going to do.

Genevieve: Praise God.

Nancy: The greatest privilege, actually, in the earth is to be with God in bringing forth eternal souls. There’s nothing more powerful.

“Oh, Lord, we thank You. Thank You for Your wonderful faithfulness to Genevieve. Thank You that You brought her through every birth with Your miracle-working power. Thank You for the beautiful children You’ve given to her and Pete.

“Lord, we thank You for the destiny that You have for them, and all the future, Lord God, an eternity. Oh, Lord God, we praise You and give You thanks that You truly are, as Genevieve has testified, You are a faithful, good God. We praise You. Amen.”

Genevieve: Amen.

Nancy: Amen.

Blessings from Nancy Campbell

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www.aboverubies.org

Transcribed by Darlene Norris

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“LIFE TO THE FULL w/ Nancy Campbell, Above Rubies”

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