Spinal cord injuries occur more often than we would like to think, over 10,000 each year on average, in auto accidents, slip and fall accidents, on construction sites, playing sports and
sometimes during the birth of a baby.
Holiness for me was found in the mess and labour
of giving
birth, in birthday parties and community pools, in the battling sweetness
of breastfeeding, in the repetition
of cleaning, in the step
of faith it took to go back to church again, in the hours
of chatting that have to precede the real heart - to - heart talks, in the yelling at my kids
sometimes, in the crying in restaurants with broken hearted friends, in the uncomfortable silences at our bible study when we're all weighing whether or not to say what we really think, in the arguments inherent to staying in love with each other, in the unwelcome number on the scale, in the sounding out
of vowels
during bedtime book reading, in the dust and stink and heat
of a tent city in Port au Prince, in the beauty
of a soccer game in the Haitian dust, in the listening to someone else's story, in the telling
of my own brokenness, in the repentance, in the secret telling and the secret keeping, in the suffering and the mourning, in the late nights tending sick
babies, in confronting fears, in the all
of a life.
During my natural
birth classes they were pretty much attachment parenting advocates (within limits) but they showed balance by saying that
sometimes after you have done everything to calm and comfort a crying
baby to no avail, if it you gets to the point where you are frustrated to the point
of snapping and possibly harming the child, it is better to put him or her down step back and possibly call for help (grandparents, trusted friends) if available.
We also have narcotic medications that are
sometimes given
during labor and delivery, respiratory function for
babies which often means separation
of mom and
baby after the
birth, and they can also interfere with coordination, sucking, swallowing and breathing.