Now a few years ago, this book was doing "the rounds" among my pregnant friends, because in it Jackie talks about having pain-free births for the last three of her four children. So I have to be honest and say that initially, when I was given the book, my first thoughts were, "thank you very much, but I won't read that". I took it home and put it on my bedside table praying, "Lord, if You think there is something I can get from this book, then please prompt me to read it, otherwise I'll give it back to her in a couple of weeks."
I then forgot about it, as it gradually became buried under my Bible, my journal and a couple of other books I was reading!
About a week ago, it was staring at me from under my Bible, and I decided to read it. I have to be honest and say it was not what I had expected. I guess because it is called supernatural childBIRTH, and because all my pregnant friends had read it in preparation for their labour, I'd had pre-conceived ideas about it not being relevant for someone struggling to conceive - almost forgetting that my friend who gave it to me is also TTC.
Jackie Mize says, thoughout the book, that to start praying for a supernatural childbirth is best before you conceive. She talks about her own struggle to conceive, and the lessons she learnt through talking with God about her struggle, and about the prayers she prayed leading to the result of having three children supernaturally, pain-free and without complication. She says it's OK to ask God for a particular gender, and it is more worthwhile asking God before you conceive, rather than expecting Him to change the baby's gender in your womb! She says it is more beneficial to pray over every aspect of the pregnancy and labour before you are, as you invite God into the whole process, rather than at the end of it.
She looks at the relationships in the Bible of the "barren women", and shares some of the insights God gave to her and her husband, including some important lessons regarding the curse given by God after Adam and Eve had sinned in the Garden (see Genesis 3:14-19). She explains how the Holy Spirit had revealed to her and her husband that the word "sorrow" doesn't mean sadness / pain etc.. as has been interpreted for centuries. Rather the Hebrew word "sorrow" has the same meaning as "grief" as used of Jesus when He faces the cross. Jesus is not sorrowful - He is grieved.
One of the greatest aspects of this small book, for me, was the fact that throughout there is a sense of Jackie and her husband Terry TOGETHER in the journey. Her husband shares her sorrow and grief and together they seek God for conception and a pain free pregnancy and delivery. There's such a sense that she was not alone in her Journey for Bubba.
At the end of the book, Jackie provides the reader with a selection of prayers she prayed, not as a "this is how it should be done", but as a "this worked for me, allow the Holy Spirit to adapt it for you". Sometimes I find it hard to know HOW to pray, so having this book has opened up a way for me to pray when I don't know how to. Not because I don't rely on the Holy Spirit, but because it helps to have the guidance of others who have gone before me.
The upshot of this is that I have ordered the book for myself, and the corresponding Prayers and Promises for Supernatural Childbirth which Jackie produced later!If, like me, you sometimes just don't know how to pray, because infertility is one of those topics which isn't discussed much in Churches, then I would recommend you have a look at this one. Praying for our Bubba before he or she arrives, covering him or her at every stage of life, from conception to development to their arrival in the world, seems logical to me. I often pray for Bubba, but reading Supernatural Childbirth opened my eyes to praying wider... for a healthy egg and healthy sperm, for development in the womb, against any complications etc... as Jackie says, its better to pray before something has happened than after!
