Natural childbirth. No medication. Friends and neighbors could not believe that I would choose to have a baby this way, but as a lifelong Christian Scientist it was only natural for me to turn to God for help during my pregnancies. I had learned from a very young age that God would be my help in any situation.

When my husband and I found out we were expecting our first child, we immediately called a Christian Science practitioner to pray with us for the next nine months. The practitioner helped me see that I needed to begin immediately to establish my understanding that the baby was God's child, and that both of us had our own identity in our Father-Mother God. A statement from Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures made this very clear: "Whatever reflects Mind, Life, Truth, and Love, is spiritually conceived and brought forth; but the statement that man is conceived and evolved both spiritually and materially, or by both God and man, contradicts this eternal truth" (p. 303). I did not have any discomfort during the first few months.

As the fetus grew, it appeared to be getting too big for me. When it kicked a certain way I was very uncomfortable. This statement helped a great deal in healing this: "Adhesion, cohesion, and attraction are properties of Mind" (ibid., p. 124). Cohesion meant to me in this case everything fitting together perfectly; there could not be any overlapping or overcrowding, because as ideas of God, the baby and I reflected divine harmony. Once I realized this, there was no more discomfort when the baby moved.

At one point I was told my blood had an iron deficiency. I prayed with references from the Bible about blood, and noticed most of the references dealt with sacrifices. I saw that what I was being asked to sacrifice was a material concept of both the baby and myself—of man, really. There was no further mention of the blood condition when I visited the midwife involved with my pregnancy.

When I went into labor, three weeks before my due date, I knew I could rely on the fact of God's perfect control of man, and I declared repeatedly, "Thy will be done." My husband read to me from Science and Health. The message of spiritual existence was so powerful that I was able to be unconcerned with the physical procedure, and the delivery was painless and quick.

I realized that after my first child was born I had been very impressed with how quickly the delivery went. I had told my birth story over and over again to friends. After the delivery I had a slow and painful recuperative period. I saw later that by telling this story over and over I was stressing that I had been through some sort of risky, material experience.

After the delivery of our second child, I cherished the birth only as a wonderful demonstration of divine fulfillment, but did not rehearse the delivery. This time there was little need for recuperation.

One hears talk about "letting go" of one's children, and often this is in reference to going off to school or college for the first time. But I learned that the letting-go process begins even before the child is born. We must see that it is really God who cares for and nurtures each one of His ideas. I am truly thankful for Christian Science and all it has done for my family and me.

Jennifer Ball Wolf
Gaithersburg, Maryland

I am glad to confirm that our reliance on Christian Science was responsible for the healthy and harmonious births of both our daughter and son. We were consistently told to expect complications and problems for both my wife and the children. As well, other people were afraid about our not relying on medication to relieve pain during delivery, and about not delivering in a hospital "in case something were to happen."

We consistently countered these concerns in our prayers with the knowledge that God is omnipotent, omnipresent, and omniscient—and that man, His complete expression, lacks nothing and is never beyond His care.

Robert C. Wolf