I went to church that Christmas Eve not because I believe, but because John was singing in the choir. He wanted me to come. “The music is beautiful. You’ll like it.” It was a terrific choir and he loved being part of it.
So, to support him I went along to the early service, the “Lessons and Carols” for children and other early-to-bed types. Later they would have the main service, starting before and ending shortly after midnight. I would wait at home.
Between musical pieces, and before the pageant of gray-haired men acting as wise men coming up the aisle to honor a mother and her baby, a lesson was presented by the Mrs. of the Mr. and Mrs. Pastor duo. The Mr. was being held in reserve for the later, bigger, more important service at midnight.
Bibles are always ready to hand in the seat back, and being fidgety in church I often open a bible and read. And so I had the lesson open and read along as the Mrs. read to us. The lesson, roughly translated, said that “all women will be punished for all time, for Eve’s transgressions in the Garden of Eden, to suffering pain in childbirth.” This was a deep cut.
Our second, and last, child and I nearly died at his birth. We had a placental abruption. That’s when the placenta pulls away from the uterine wall before the baby is born. It shouldn’t come away until after the baby is born and after the interlaced blood vessels have closed off. This too-early separation starves the unborn baby of oxygen and causes terrible blood loss for the mother. It is very dangerous. It is very painful. And it is very scary.
As I was prepared for an emergency caesarean a woman’s voice behind my left shoulder announced the baby’s heart rate was dropping. They were in such a hurry I thought they might start cutting before I was out. My last thought before blackness was that we could lose this baby. It didn’t occur to me that we could lose me.
I woke from anesthesia to a voice speaking in my ear. My sweet natured doctor was saying “Hi Ann, it’s Dr. Aire.” I opened my eyes to see his young, smiling, bearded face over me and said “I feel like shit.” He laughed and said “I bet you do!” His manner suggests he never swears, so his laughter at my language was especially reassuring. He explained that during the surgery they had removed fist-sized clots of blood. I lost a lot of blood.
They monitored my hematocrit, a measure of available red blood cells; it continued dropping. Over the next few hours I received three units of blood to prevent me simply dropping dead. They stopped when I stabilized slightly above the more-blood-needed threshold. It was six weeks at least before my body made up the deficit, from barely enough red blood cells to a normal level, weeks when I was cold all the time. It’s hard to be warm when you don’t have enough blood.
At our first encounter, a nurse brought our new son to me, clattering through the doorway with his IV pole and tubing. I had my own IV’s and tubes. She very gingerly handed him to me, so that we didn’t tangle. The surgeon dropped by to talk about “what happened.” He described the events and mentioned that not many years before an abruption like this would have been fatal for both of us. The thought of me and the baby dying, leaving John and our 2½-year-old son to carry on alone, was difficult to consider.
The questions that lingered afterwards were: was I infected with HIV from the blood transfusions, and if I were, did I pass it to our son through breastfeeding; and did the brief spell of oxygen shortage and dropping heart rate cause him brain damage? After six months we knew I did not have HIV. It was several years before we were confident that our son was fine.
All this came to mind as I listened and read along to the pastor reading this “lesson” on that Christmas Eve. I can ignore the long ago writers. Millenia have passed since they wrote this story; it reflects that time.
But what of this pastor? Why would she ever choose to present such a story to a congregation? Yes, it’s in the Bible; it belongs there. But that doesn’t mean it needs to be “taught.” And why would she choose it for Christmas Eve?
I cannot accept that what I experienced at my son’s birth is somehow justified by God as punishment for Eve’s sins. I don’t reject the Bible; it’s a historical document. But I do reject religious leaders who “teach” such horrors.
I have been to no religious service since.
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