Patrick Henry Block

Thank you, Lord, for everything you have done for us. I could not have gotten through last Monday and Tuesday….and the rest of the week without your strength and encouragement. Thank you for our healthy baby and our safe birth. Although it was much longer than I expected, thank you for previously instilling in me patience and endurance to work through Patrick’s birth. Thank you for everyone who was there with me to support me.

Thank you to my incredible husband for his support and for taking such great care of us. In the past week, Matt has done an extraordinary amount of work to take care of us. Not only has he helped me sit and stand when I needed it, but he has also taken care of a lot of hygiene stuff for both of us. He brought Patrick to me when I was still so sore, taken our vitals every 4 hours in the days after Patrick’s birth, cooked and brought me food and drink, cleaned up, and so much more. The sweetest and best part is his encouragement and love and incredible patience with both of us. Wow….I could not have asked for a better man. And he is so adorable to watch and listen to when he is with our baby!

To Heidi and Berna for being there for sooo long and doing everything they did to help out and document the amazing[ly long] birth. I really thought it was going to be much shorter by the time I called you – thank your for sticking it out for so long!! Heidi, we can’t wait to see the pictures!

Thank you to everyone for your prayers and congrats – and the bounty of delicious, healthy food! And especially our parents and families for your support and those of you who have helped out soooo much around the house.

And to my awesome and knowledgeable Certified Nurse Midwife and her nurse assistant for the BEST QUALITY of birthing care in the comfort and safety of our own home. Patrick is proudly wearing a little hat that says “Born at Home.” Well….mostly he is sleeping and making cute noises while mommy and daddy are proudly making him wear it. They are very very glad of their decision to use a midwife because mommy would NOT have done well in a hospital with a birth that long. From the time my water broke (really early in the process) to Patrick being born was about 31 hours (not all of that time did I have contractions though). But I probably would have ended up with one even longer from the stress of being at a hospital, ordered to have an induction, or been tempted to get some kind of other drug – none of which I wanted for us. And with a ridiculously high 30+ % chance of ending up with a major surgery of a c-section, that was NOT something I wanted to risk. Our baby was born a healthy 8+ pounds with a good set of runner’s lungs, pink pink skin, and a great/unstressed heart rate throughout the birthing process because I was comfortable, unstressed, cared for by people I knew and trusted, and allowed the freedom to do whatever my body was telling me to do to get that baby out.

So while we are on that topic, THANK YOU to Representatives like Eric Burlison, Shane Schoeller, Bob Dixon, Senator John Loudon, and others in the area and across the state who support the continuation of Certified Professional Midwives and Certified Nurse Midwives in Missouri. THANK YOU for supporting my family in our desire to have the choice to have the best quality prenatal/postpartum care and birth experience possible. THANK YOU for trusting us to make our own decisions about our own health instead of being forced into a “medical emergency” with often unscientific and outdated practices that can hinder rather than help. THANK YOU for not insulting our intelligence by assuming we wanted a homebirth with a midwife because of the cost, as some kind of celebrity fad, “extreme birth,” elitist thing, backwoods thing, or other ridiculous claim that comes from uninformed people/media/many medical professionals and their organizations. On behalf of families across the state – and with a mere fraction of the gratitude that we all feel, THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU!!!!!!!!