November 2013 Prayer Letter

Written by Karl Dahlfred on .

DBaby John with siblings Joshua and Caitlinear Friends & Family,

Thank you for your many prayers. As you know, I asked you to pray that I’d be able to deliver our baby naturally, and the Lord has answered graciously and amazingly.  Our initial doctor said she was unwilling to give me the opportunity to birth naturally so I looked elsewhere and was finally able to find one doctor who was willing to give me that chance. But if I was going to succeed in doing this naturally, I needed a doula to help.  At the very last minute, the Lord connected me with a doula who proved to be just right for what I needed.

On the day that I gave birth, I woke up at 4 am and couldn’t go back to sleep. Later that morning, I began to feel contractions every 8 minutes or so, and then 7 minutes apart.  At about 2 o’clock that day I called my doula and she said to monitor and to give her a call later when it was getting stronger. By late afternoon, I was about 3 to 4 minutes apart.  Our friends came to pick up the kids to take care of them while we were at the hospital.  The doula came, and we labored for about an hour at home.  Then my water broke and we hurriedly went to the hospital, where I found out I was already 9 cm dilated and wanting to push. The doctor arrived shortly after that and checked me. I was 10 cm and ready to go.  Soon after that, our baby popped out his head, opened his eyes and looked around.  Then his body all came out.  He was beautiful.  I held him and fed him right away while the doctor gave me a few stitches. The baby and I were doing well since we had no drugs during the birth, so we came home less than 24 hours later.


The recovery was a bit hard though, because twice I pulled some muscles in my back. I couldn’t do much at all and Karl had to help me a lot with the baby and the other children.  We had a friend come over for a week to help and we tried to see if someone could massage the pulled muscles. However, the massage place said they wouldn’t touch anyone who had just delivered.  All I could do was rest at home.  It’s been four weeks, and I am feeling better.  One of the muscles I pulled is still sore but today I was able to manage the home and make dinner while Karl was out, so Karl was happy about that. 

Praise God for giving us this chance to deliver a baby all naturally without drugs and medical interventions, and without any complications, even though all the doctors were worried.  The Lord graciously gave this birth to us. I think this should be an encouragement to other women who would like to birth naturally and avoid a C-section.  I believe that God designed us with the ability to control our labor pains and to birth our babies naturally so that we could recover more quickly and more easily. All the offerings of modern technology are readily available and many people don’t even know there are any alternatives.  I certainly didn’t know any better before and ended up with two caesarean sections-- perhaps unnecessarily.  Natural birth is a beautiful thing.

Thank you again for your prayers, and I am thankful to Karl for all his support, and for the children for their good attitudes.  I’m also thankful to the many friends who stopped by to help, to bring food & gifts, and to remind us that they are praying for us. Praise God!

by Christ’s grace,
Sun & Karl Dahlfred


PRAYER POINTS

  • Sun to recover 100% from delivery including back pain
  • Thai Christian books from Kanok to sell well as they go on sale in secular bookshops


PRAISES

  • Successful natural delivery of baby John
  • Kids adjusting well to new baby
  • New opportunity for Kanok to put Thai Christian books in the stores of Thailand’s largest bookstore chain

CALENDAR

11/3  Karl preach Grace City Bangkok church plant
11/24 Karl preach New City Church, Bangkok

 


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