When Paris realized she was pregnant, she was overwhelmed with fear and the thought of the impending torture that awaited her as she brought her baby into the world.  That’s not how we imagine it will unfold when we’re little girls dreaming of being mommies.   But all Paris had ever heard were horror stories.  Even at baby showers, and most of all at church, the older women would terrify all the young women with endless tales of birthing terror. 

Paris knew deep in her heart that birth wasn’t supposed to be that way.  Even though she had no evidence or testimony to back it up, she believed that birth could and should be beautiful.  And she was asking God to give her a wonderful, different kind of experience from all she had heard about.  But when she shared these thoughts with the other women they mocked her and told her she was delusional.  They told her she was silly and naïve because she’d never had a baby, but one day she will see, birth is everything but beautiful.  They asked her what made her think she was so special that she alone would elude a nightmare birth experience.  They told her she was arrogant to think she was better than other women who had suffered. 

So when Paris got married she talked to her husband and he agreed to allow her to use natural family planning methods so that she wouldn’t get pregnant and have to experience the horror of birthing a child.  The women laughed at her for that too and told her she’s like a village girl, going backwards in time.  They told her she should be a modern woman and use hormonal forms of birth control.  But Paris had also seen and heard horror stories of the side effects and consequences of hormonal birth control as well. 

I had only met Paris once, but my husband and I are good friends with Paris’ husband, Sam, because both men are quite successful Kenyan Christian music artists.  We have all ministered and recorded together a lot.  In passing, Sam had once mentioned to Paris that I am a midwifery student, but she didn’t think anything of it, and honestly, didn’t really care. 

But when she became pregnant and was overcome with fear, she remembered.  She called me out of the blue and said she urgently needed to see me.  I suspected the reason but didn’t say so and we arranged a time to meet at my home. 

When she came she poured out her heart to me.  She told me she wanted a positive birth experience and believed it could be so.  She said she wanted a home birth, but she didn’t dare tell anyone else for fear they’d think she was even crazier than they already did!  She asked me if I thought she was crazy too.  If I had ever heard of anything like what she was talking about and if I thought there was any way any of it was possible.

I was so deeply touched by her passion for something she wasn’t sure even existed.  We talked and talked for hours.  I showed her a video of my son’s birth and that got us talking about water birth and gentle birth techniques.  She was on cloud nine.  It was even BETTER than what she’d been dreaming of and hoping was possible.  She was so excited, relieved, and thankful, she could hardly believe it. 

Lucy Muchiri, the midwife featured in last month's Newsletter, has so very generously and lovingly agreed to help me help Paris have the incredible, beautiful, empowering home birth her heart hopes for.  I believe with all my heart God will give her this precious gift, not only for herself, her baby, and her wonderful husband, but as a testimony to countless other women that they don’t have to have a traumatic birth experience and they too can desire and seek out so much more.   

I am SO honored and excited to get to work with Paris.  She is an absolute delight and we are such kindred spirits.  As midwives, we get to usher in life on so many levels, in so many ways.  With Paris, I got to usher life and hope into her heart.  What a miraculous adventure to be called to this.

 Martin, Amariah, Ezriel, Jannekah and Adali Lynn and Guya