God Told me How to Have a Pain Free Delivery

Our first baby, Lynn, was now past two years old. As I said, I had carried him full term and delivered him in a little over three hours.

But still I was really ignorant of the details of the process of childbirth — how your body changes, what all has to happen — so I made it a point to read every book I could get on the subject. The unknown produces fear. I realized that the more knowledge I had of what my body had to do, the less likely I was to be afraid. Once I understood what was happening as changes took place in my body, I was no longer afraid. The more knowledge I gained, the more peace and confidence I had. Of course, there are usually a few things in every good source of information that you have to toss out because it doesn’t agree with what you are believing for. For example, most books tell you to expect a long labor with your first baby and severe afterbirth pains after your second baby. I heard someone say, “You should have as much sense as an old cow: eat the hay and spit out the sticks.” I always tried to keep that in mind as I read those books. The more knowledge you have about what’s going on inside of you, the better off you are. Just always spit out the sticks.

 One major thing I realized was that I was going to have to watch what I said. If I was believing God that I would have this baby without pain, then I would have to quit expecting and talking about labor pains. (People always say, “How far apart are the labor pains?”) I wondered, What should I call them? I refuse to call them pains. And then I remembered the nurse called them contractions. So that’s what I called them from then on: muscle contractions.

Sometimes people get silly ideas, and I was no different. I couldn’t imagine how you could have a baby without hurting. I thought, Would you just not know what was going on? I wondered, Will I just wake up and there will be a baby in bed with me? I mean, how will I know?

 God took me step by step. I asked Him about everything. I said, “God, I don’t understand how this is going to happen. I’ve already had one baby, and I know all the things that happened and that it was hard work, but I don’t understand how my body will contract and stretch without hurting.”

 I knew labor “pains” were muscle contractions, but I didn’t understand why they did hurt so I didn’t understand why they wouldn’t hurt. It didn’t make sense to me. The Lord explained it so plainly that I couldn’t miss it. “Contract the muscle in your arm,” He said. I did.

 “Now hold it.” I did. I held it real tight. “Keep holding it. Hold it for as long as you can.” I did. My arm was all tensed up, and the muscle was tight; it was hard, and it began to tremble, but it didn’t hurt.

 He said, “That is a muscle contraction, and it doesn’t have to hurt.” It was uncomfortable and a strain on my muscles, but it didn’t hurt.

That changed my whole way of thinking. It explained to me how it could work. I knew that in order to push the baby out the muscles had to contract. The Lord explained to me, “When your body goes into labor, the contractions will come. Your body will work hard as the muscles contract. They’ll push the baby and cause everything to do what it should, but it doesn’t have to hurt.” The pain women experience in childbirth comes mostly from fear and lack of knowledge. This keeps them from being able to stay in control of the situation and keeps them from having the peace of God during labor and delivery. Pain came when Adam and Eve had to leave the Garden because of sin. Pain is under the curse. ALL pain — headache, stomach pain, toothache — is under the curse.

 Since Jesus has redeemed us from pain, we don’t have to put up with it. It’s up to us whether we take authority over pain and run it off in Jesus’ name or we let it stay. The choice is ours.

How Will I Know When It’s Time?

 I really didn’t know my baby’s due date because before I got pregnant this time, God had miraculously healed me from a tumor. My closest estimate was sometime between the first week of August and the first week of October.

Since we were missionaries and our home was Guadalajara, Mexico, we decided that I would stay there to have the baby rather than come back to the United States like everyone suggested. God gave me a wonderful Spirit-filled doctor, we found a good hospital and my mother came down for the big event.

Even though my doctor was a Christian, I didn’t tell him what we were believing to have happen or not to happen during this birth because I didn’t want to take a chance that he might try to talk me out of it. But I did tell him I wouldn’t need any anesthetic.

One day at the end of August, I started having light contractions. I knew the labor was going to be fast, and I knew it was going to be easy, so I just kept wondering all day if this was it. I would have a contraction about every two or three hours, so I decided to go to the doctor and have him check me. He said, “Don’t even go all the way out to your house tonight. The baby weighs at least seven pounds, and you’ve already started dilating. You’ll have that baby before the night is over.”

Well, that night came and went, and many other nights came and went. I had no more contractions. Six weeks later I was still pregnant, and I was getting so big, I could hardly get up out of a chair or take a deep breath. The baby was taking up every available space I had and was still growing! I knew he was bigger than Lynn had been. I was beginning to think I was eternally pregnant!

Finally I figured up and said to Terry, “I know without a doubt this baby has to be due. Yesterday was the last possible due date I could have had — October 5. This baby is at least one day past due.”

 I didn’t ever want to have a baby early. God knew what He was doing, and nine months is how long it takes for a baby to be strong, fully developed and ready to be born. I never wanted to try to believe God to speed things up or have a baby born at a more convenient time. But I must admit, those six weeks were the longest six weeks I have ever spent in my life, thinking each day would be “it.”

That night, Terry and I sat down on the bed and opened the Bible. Terry said, “The Lord just spoke to me and told me to mirror His Word to Him.” In other words, tell Him what His Word says. “So that’s what I’m going to do, and then we’re going to pray.”

We started in Genesis where the curse came on Adam and Eve. Then we went to Galatians 3:14,29 where it shows us we’ve been redeemed from the curse. We read the curses in Deuteronomy 28 and said, “No, we’ll not have that; we are redeemed from the curse.” We went to Mark 11:23,24 that tells us we can have what we say. We read Matthew 18:19 that talks about the prayer of agreement. We read 1 Timothy 2:15 that says a woman will be saved in childbearing. We told God what we were believing. We said, “God, this is what You said in Your Word. This is what we believe. This is what we’ve been standing on. This is what we’ve been confessing that we will have.”

Then Terry said, “Devil, I want you and all hell to listen. This is what we are believing, and we’ll have nothing less than this. Jackie will go to the hospital and have this baby without pain, without stitches, without anesthetic, without any complications, without any problems.”

We called God and all of heaven to record on what God had said; and then we wanted the devil and all of hell to know what God had said and where we stood in this matter.

Then Terry laid his hands on my large round abdomen and said, “Body, you function perfectly, the way you should function to have a baby. Bones, joints, you spread where you need to spread. Muscles, you contract the way you need to contract. Cervix, you soften and dilate fast, easily, without problems. Vagina, you stretch easily; you be elastic and stretch perfectly without tearing.” He spoke to every part of my body that we could think of.

We said, “This is our last night of this pregnancy. Our baby will be born in the morning.”

Then he spoke to the baby. “Baby, I command you in the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth to get in position and to be born in the morning.” It was already past midnight then, so Terry went on to pray that I would have a good night’s sleep, rest well and wake up refreshed and ready to go to the hospital to have the baby.

Speak to everything you can think of, then be confident that your body and your baby have to line up and obey the name of Jesus.

Now we had a small dilemma: since we had never known anyone who had done this, we really didn’t know what to expect. Finally we decided that we would command my water to break. Thank God! We could at least have a sign, something so we would know I was in labor and should go to the hospital.

I took a shower, got my things ready to go to the hospital and went to bed. At this stage in pregnancy a good night’s rest was welcomed. I had slept soundly for about five hours when the baby dropped into position, jarring me awake. I had never experienced anything like it, but I knew what had happened, so I got up and went into the bathroom. One little trickle of water ran down my leg. I didn’t know if my water broke or if it was just pressure on my bladder. (The doctor broke my water when Lynn was born so I didn’t know what to expect.) I thought, There’s got to be more than this to be sure, Lord. I still don’t know if it’s time.

 I went back to bed for an hour; and when I got up again, I left a small puddle of water with every step I took. This was it! I had my first contraction. It was so intense that I was surprised. I realized that if they started out like that, it wouldn’t take very many of them to have that baby. They came at five minute intervals. After about four or five of them, I woke Terry and said, “You’d better get up. This is it.”

Beginning with the first contraction, every muscle was working, contracting and pushing, but without pain. The contractions were so intense that if I were walking when one started, I would have to stop and wait until it passed to take another step, but they didn’t hurt! I can remember thinking, I know this is the way God intended for women to have babies from the beginning.

On the way to the hospital there was one contraction that was even more intense. I thought the baby was going to be born in the car before we reached the hospital and that scared me. And because I became fearful, the next contraction really hurt bad. I knew I had to gain control fast. I said, “Terry, pray for me. That one scared me and hurt.” He reached his hand over and laid it on my abdomen and said, “We’re not going to have any fear or pain. Go in Jesus’ name.”

Terry told me, “Jackie, I can’t believe this for you. We’re in this together; we’re believing together. But it is up to you once you get in that hospital room. If you decide you want to have an anesthetic or something for pain, just know, I’m in agreement with you no matter what you do.” I had a decision to make: either go ahead and make this work like we said and believed it would or give in, quit using my faith and take whatever came. I remember after Terry prayed for me in the car I stomped my foot and said, “Devil, I refuse to hurt and be afraid.” By the time I had the next contraction, we had won. I was back in faith and peace instead of fear. All pain was gone. I am sure that was where I made up my mind and became absolutely determined to run the devil off and take what was rightfully mine. When we finally got to the hospital, it was almost funny. The nurses asked, “Can we help you?”

“I’m going to have a baby,” I told them.

“We can see that,” they replied.

 I told them, “I mean right now!” They didn’t believe me, because I was just standing there at the counter and smiling and talking normally.

The contractions were about one-and-one-half minutes apart and were lasting about that long. Since we were in Mexico and I was still having a challenge learning the language, we were talking through an interpreter. It was really fun trying to convince the interpreter to convince the nurses to hurry.

I told them, “I’ll give you ten minutes and that’s all the time you’ve got to get ready.” They all laughed. They didn’t believe I was even close to time for delivery.

We finally convinced them to examine me, and when they did, they realized I was right. I was completely dilated. But I missed it on the time: it was twenty minutes until the baby was born, not ten. But my sweet Christian doctor got there a little late; he arrived just in time to hear the baby cry.

It was the most wonderful thing I had ever experienced because I didn’t have fear. I had confidence and peace instead. I experienced a joy and a thrill that no words could ever express as I gave that one big push to get that second miracle baby out and into the hands of a Mexican doctor I didn’t even know.

From the beginning of labor to the time our baby Paul David was born was only forty minutes. He weighed a hearty ten pounds — which I could hardly believe. I told God, “I would have agreed that Your Word worked if I would have had a six-pound baby. And people would have been amazed if I would have had a six-pound baby with only forty minutes in labor, without pain and without stitches and without complications. That would have been a wonderful testimony. But a ten-pound baby! Only You would do that!” (I was glad I didn’t know how big the baby was before I had him!)

It’s Not Over Yet!

The very next thing that presented itself was, “Since this is your second baby, you will have afterbirth pains, and they are really bad. In fact, they are worse than the labor pains.”

 Let me tell you, those afterbirth pains are under the same curse as any other pain. After you have your baby, keep talking to your body, keep telling it what to do. It is subject to you; you are not subject to your body. You can use the name of Jesus and make your body do what it needs to. Command the bleeding to stop. Command the uterus to contract like it is supposed to, without pain. It is still only a contraction and does not have to hurt.

The doctors and nurses had never seen anything like it. They had never seen anybody walk into the hospital laughing, lie down on the delivery table, push once, have a ten-pound baby and an hour later call friends and family in the United States announcing the baby. I never felt better in my life.