Answered Prayer

Saturday was my birthday, and I was given a wonderful gift at the end of the day. I received an email from one of our readers, sharing how my essay “Unity with Providers of Care” (in the Unity chapter of our book) had a positive impact on her. She also shared a beautiful spiritual experience she had after reading my essay. With her permission, I share it today. -Lani

I’ve been reading your blog, Birth Faith, for a while now, and have been making my way through The Gift of Giving Life, and I wanted to tell you how much your book has helped me.

Long story short, I was very unhappy with the hospital care I received with my 3rd child. While I like the Ob/Gyn I normally see, they have about twenty doctors that rotate at the hospital. With my 3rd child, I played Russian roulette with this system and ended up with two very horrid doctors who threatened and yelled at me for giving birth the way I wanted to. So I have been hoping to find—and not have to pay for—a better option for my 4th child.

Yesterday I had a very important meeting with the head OB for the insurance provider we have to discuss whether or not I could get a referral to a birthing center. I’d been waiting for a month for this appointment and was very keyed up about the whole thing, so I went to bed the night before knowing that I probably wouldn’t be sleeping well.

I began flipping through The Gift of Giving Life, hoping to find something that would help me organize and understand my thoughts better and came across your essay “Unity with Providers of Care.” It was exactly what I needed to read right then. It summed up perfectly what was wrong with my previous experience and why I really did feel strongly that I needed to find another route for the next go-around. Anyway, your essay brought me so much peace of mind, and shortly after reading it, it really hit me that the decision of how to birth my baby was mine, and that no matter what the doctor said to me, he couldn’t change that fact. I needed to remember that because, before then, I had been feeling absolutely powerless against whatever his decision would be.

Shortly after that epiphany, as I was praying about the whole thing, I had one of the clearest answers to prayer that I have ever received. I suddenly knew without a doubt that I would deliver this baby at home, and that a certain midwife I’d only spoken with on the phone would be there to assist me. I am not someone who gets answers to prayers very easily or even very often, and I have been praying for months to know what to do about delivering this baby. I still have to get my husband on board with all this, so it certainly isn’t a done deal yet, but I feel so much peace and joy knowing that my prayers have been heard and answered, and I have so much confidence now that everything will work out the way Heavenly Father wants it to.

I feel that reading your essay really set the stage for me to be able to think through all these thoughts and receive this very personal answer to prayers. I know from your blog that you’ve been going through a very hard time—I have been praying for you and will continue to do so. But I also wanted you to know how you have blessed a complete stranger’s life! So thank you for your blog and your book.