One is a young single mum who was shocked and dismayed to find herself pregnant, and has had a very hard time all through the pregnancy struggling to accept the situation. She is due in a couple of days and is still trying to wrap her mind around the fact that she is really going to have a baby. And then what? Keep the baby even though she is so immature herself? Adopt the baby out? Let her mother take the child and raise it as her own? None are really good options; every one is painful and fraught with pitfalls along the way. As she cried on my shoulder yesterday, I prayed with her and encouraged her to think about what is best for her baby. Now we wait for her labor to begin and the rest of her life to take shape around the impending decisions.
“For I know the plans I have for you”, says the Lord; “plans to prosper you and not to harm you; plans to give you hope and a future”. (Jeremiah 29:11)
The other young mum is fourteen years old (fifteen this month), and is married to a twenty-eight year-old man. They live in a village three hours away, so caring for her for these last three months of her pregnancy will be difficult, yet critical. How can we attend someone so young? I don't know. It remains to be seen if we can. Girls so young are loose cannons risk-wise, yet if we were to judge by her attitude alone, she will labor and deliver just fine. Like many indigenous women here in Oaxaca, she thinks there is nothing out of the ordinary in being married and pregnant so young. We are concerned; she is stoic. We don't yet know whether she will be “risked out” of a Casa Compasiva birth or not. It remains to be seen. But as we keep vigil over her through the remainder of her pregnancy, we can at least give her excellent prenatal care, biblical teaching, encouragement, and compassion.
Please pray for these precious young clients, as well as our other ladies in more “normal” pregnancy situations. Thanks!
I just watched Coal Miner's Daughter last night, and Loretta Lynn was only 14 when the first of her six children was born. Her husband was presumably quite a bit older, too. Interesting to think of your client in light of this true story.
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