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My Birth Rant

January 11, 2012 – 10:25 am

 

I need to write a rant in response to a comment I often get when I attempt to contribute to a conversation about childbirth.  They say, “Jen, you were just made to have babies.”  It’s a kiss off though, not at all a compliment.  Sid gave me the best comeback last night, “Really, you don’t have a vagina?”  But seriously, why do women want to reject my experiences?  Why do they want to separate themselves from me regarding this, alienate me, really?  At the very least, why aren’t they open to what I might have to say?  One more question, why does it seem as though so many Christian women want to acknowledge God in every other area of their lives, but ignore His influence over the area of childbirth?

 

I did have 4 uncomplicated pregnancies and births, but that doesn’t mean I didn’t experience the general challenges the average woman faces.  And when you work with a midwife, she explains exactly how to make sure you stay low-risk so that you are less likely to encounter complications.  That wasn’t my “just made to have babies” body, I cooperated with my midwife as she supervised everything from my stress level to my protein intake and blood levels.  There are numerous variables that contribute to staying low-risk and I have to mention that I have a friend who endured traumatic, life-threatening complications that resulted in premature induction, which could have been avoided if her ob-gyn had been keeping an eye on certain factors, or intervened earlier when symptoms were manifesting.

 

I am convinced that birth was no easier for me than it is for the average woman, I have heard of painless birth, and I did not have that.  I was scared of birth, all four times, because it is tremendously difficult and there’s that “unknown factor” too. But my fear led me to fill my mind with tools (I specifically remember Googling “pain management techniques” when I was pregnant with my first, knowing I wanted a homebirth [because I was scared of the hospital]), positive birth stories, prayers and I cultivated an open attitude to what I might endure in my births.

 

Guess, what? If you talk to me about birth and let me tell my stories, you will hear about the intensity, my screaming (for real screaming, not roller coaster screaming), back labor, my attempts to deal with such overwhelming sensations and thinking I would lose my mind and not recover if I had to make it through yet one more contraction, but you will also hear about my children and husband comforting me, the Lord giving small gifts to help me relax and move on to the next stage, as well as what I learned about opening my body through my mind and the gentle language I coached myself with.  You will hear about Ina May Gaskin and her books and you will hear about Susan Scott Gill, my genius-midwife.  I have heard stories of the most difficult and traumatic births, I have been in the delivery room with one laboring mom on her second epidural, vomiting from her shot of demerol and with another just before and just following her c-section, I have heard stories of disappointment, loss, infection and illness.  I take them all in, I feel that those stories should be granted as much space in my perception of birth as the positive ones.  Yet, I think it unwise to fail to acknowledge the fact that negative outcomes in women’s birthing experiences are significantly more common among conventional hospital births, than natural, birth center and homebirths.

 

My message to women about birth is simple.  It will be the most intensely challenging physical experience of your life – in most cases – and you will (most likely) wish it to be over sooner than it is, but if you give yourself over to God’s will for your experience, when all is said and done and that most perfect little person is finally in your arms wriggling, making its precious little noises and causing a full on upheaval of everything you’ve ever known because you’ve never loved like this, you will look back at your birth and God’s grace will be undeniably woven throughout, no matter what challenges you faced.  It takes openness, it takes a heart fascinated by God’s design for birth and it takes a willingness to endure physical agony (but with an end and for a purpose).  That’s how I see birth, NOT that I’m “just made to have babies.”

 

If anyone wants to hear more from me regarding birth, that’s why I created this website!  Poke around, if you don’t find what you’re looking for and/or if you want prayer for your birth, I would love to pray for you, email me!  bouquetofparentheses@gmail.com

 

 

 

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A baby milky dream

February 3, 2011 – 11:46 am

Well, I stopped importing this blog to facebook last night, and I feel such relief knowing that ONLY people who actually log on here will see what I have to share. It won’t go into that crazy news feed that I don’t know how I feel about most of the time (when I see my stuff on there). I didn’t realize how that import setting was hindering my adding new posts here. So cool that I feel more free with this privacy.

That said, without further ado, I present to you, dear committed reader, a dream I had while pregnant with Indy. Before I knew he was a boy, as his birth was approaching. I journaled it and here is what I wrote:

The other night I had a dream, it was so, so, so great!

I dreamt that I awoke with a beautiful baby boy by my side. I was elated and I picked him up immediately and nuzzled him! He was wearing a blue suit and he had a large head, a bit of eczema on his face and he was PERFECT! As I pondered, I realized I couldn’t remember my labor at all, I had slept through the whole thing! I asked Sid, “What was the labor like? I can’t remember anything.” He told me. “It was great, the midwives decided they aren’t even going to charge you, they had so little work to do, it was their pleasure. They were actually asking you questions about birth.” Ha! Next I remember thinking, “Oh man, the baby and I both just slept for hours, he must be starving!” So I began to nurse him and he was chomping like an animal and my breast just flooded his little mouth with milk and it was dripping all over the couch, I put napkins below to catch the overflow. I was ecstatic to see my body, once again, rise to the occasion of providing more than enough of that most wonderful food for yet another of the most precious people in my life, ever. For some reason there has been a worry in the back of my mind, “Just what if I don’t produce enough milk, or I face some other breastfeeding challenge?” I have such strong and beautiful imagery to ponder from this dream, Thank you Lord!

When I awoke and remembered the dream I laughed a joyful laugh, rejoicing that my brain (or God, maybe) is giving me such positive thoughts about my soon coming birth and breastfeeding. It can be crazy when I really think about going through labor again and starting all over nursing a new baby. Regarding labor, I want it, and I don’t really want to sleep through it. I want to experience the overwhelming intensity because it is completely transforming and grants such abundant gifts. So it’s hard when I realize the way labor is designed to be, and I realize that I actually want it to be exactly that way and that I’ll just have to take it moment by moment in all its overwhelmingness. It almost seems that it would be easier on my mind to wish to avoid it, but I do not wish to because the agony increases the relief and the joy that follows and makes the experience what I think God designed it to be for most mothers and babies. I guess this means that the best thing to do is to resign to it and I think I’m as ready to do that as any woman has been. Maybe? We shall see. How ever it goes, it is so way far beyond worth whatever it may be like, to get to the next step: my baby in my arms, on my chest.

You know what’s crazy? When Indy was, maybe a couple of months old, I was sitting with him on our couch, and I began to nurse him, he was wearing a blue suit and my milk was over-abundant! It began to drip onto the couch and I asked Sid for something to soak it up with. He handed me a napkin and I was just like, “Oh my gosh! This is exactly like that dream I had!!” The only difference had to do with Indy being so much more handsome than he was in my dream, no eczema on his face and a tidy little round head. Wow.

I LOVE HIM!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! And he’s five months old today =)

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the story of Indy’s birth

November 22, 2010 – 10:17 pm

Toward night on September 2, 2010 I knew that I was contracting fairly consistently, but in order not to get too anxious or excited, I ignored the contractions and went about my typical nighttime duties. Sid came home a bit early that night, that’s always nice.

When we went to bed I felt the contractions continue, but I knew if it really was labor, while my contractions were still mild, now was the time to rest. I got up to go the bathroom and came back to bed, still contracting, this could be it! With one of the stronger contractions I felt something like a rubber band snap deep inside me, it reminded me a lot of when my water had broken just before June was born . . . hmmmm. I told Sid what I felt and then got up to try to figure out if it was my water bag. No leakage. But when I turned to get back into bed, a little leakage occurred! That was when I knew I must be in early labor!

Sid scrambled up out of bed, ignored the fact that he had a broken fibula and got the birth pool ready to be birthed in. We had everything set up in the library, the most tranquil room in our home. The birth pool was situated in front of our large fireplace. From it I had wonderful views out our large windows and behind the pool we set up the couch for my immediate postpartum time. Sid did so much work that night, so quickly, it was heroic.

We called Sue, my midwife to let her know what was up and she assured me she was going back to bed on her sofa, in her clothes waiting for me to tell her to come. Since confirming that my water had broken, my contractions had slowed and I was no longer sure this would be the night that my baby would be born. So I paced the house as Sid continued with the preparations. My contractions returned, slowly but surely.

With all the bustling around the house, the children had been roused from their slumber. I went in to where they were sleeping, so excited to deliver the news that my water had broken. We had been talking about the signs of early labor, because the kids wanted to know as much as possible, when to expect their newest sibling to join us in the world outside my womb. They were sooooo excited they all got out of bed and wiled the next couple of hours away watching Leave it to Beaver Season 1 on Netflix.

When I’d had a couple of fairly strong contractions, I did as Sue had instructed me and called her. She came. As Sue prepared her stuff, and her assistants arrived and prepared some wonderful things for my postpartum time, I continued to meander around the house. Soon after that, Sue checked me and found me to be around 3 or 4 centimeters dilated. She assured me that I would not be checked again. Since I had a while to go, I moseyed on padding around the house. I didn’t look at the clock at all throughout my labor. Sid went back to bed to get a bit of rest for the long hours we had ahead of us.

This was a very pleasant time for me, I walked from room to room, visiting Sue, Lindsey and Courtney in the library, then visiting with the kids in the living room. When my anxiety level rose, I would waddle to my bedroom to be alone, pray (“Bless my birth, Lord”) and relax. Throughout the house, wherever a contraction struck, there I would stop and try to open up, visualizing my body letting the baby out.

Sue watched me and I felt that she could see into me because she knew that I was at a point when the water would feel so good, and at the same time, that I was dilated enough, without having to check me, so that the water most likely wouldn’t stall my labor. Time to get Sid out of bed to help fill the birth pool with warm water.

I stripped down to my bathing suit top and stepped into the water, I gave the reflexive, “Aaahhhhh,” and felt my body loosen and melt into the water. My contractions were mild enough for me to enjoy company in the pool, so Junie got her bathing suit on and splashed around in the water with me! She snuggled me, jumped around, talked to me and asked me why I kept going to sleep! “Why you go sleep?” I was bowing my head and closing my eyes with my contractions. I tried to explain the function of the uterus, but she continued to ask why I was going to sleep, so I resolved to let her know whenever I was about to go to sleep and then when the contraction had passed I would declare that I was awake. It was fun.

We hadn’t planned it, but the fire had to be lit to warm the room for the baby’s arrival. That fire was a wonderful accompaniment to my labor. I loved warming my face by it and also staring into it as I prayed my way through the passing minutes. “Bless my birth, Lord.”

The nights leading up to my labor had been fraught with anxiety, I worried about the pain of labor, the children during labor, the baby, and so on. I had no time to worry or work through worries during my busy days, so even though I was not overly focused on potential negative outcomes, anxiety arose in the darkness and quietude of the nights. Because of this, each daybreak I was awake for was significant, it brought light, warmth, hope and peace. As I labored through the night, and especially as I labored in the water and things began to intensify, I looked forward to the break of day and the peace it would bring. It would be a new day full of sunlight and in my arms would be my baby child, the one whom I’d been waiting for, the one whose soul I had been dreaming of and praying for for so long! Four children and one partner in the joy of it all, sharing our big bed, snuggling our way through this time of transition and adjustment, wonderful day!

I was on my knees in the water during my contractions, thinking that gravity would help the baby out. When the contractions passed, I would relax back on my bum. When I was really needing to focus to get through my contractions, Sid and Sue picked up on it and lovingly urged Junie out of the water. She was sleepy and reluctantly and a little bit sadly, she got out.

Day broke! It was lovely to get the early morning light shining in on us.

Soon, I was working hard to get through each contraction, still praying and trying to visualize my body opening, opening, opening. Sue suggested I feel to see if the head was presenting yet. I was really stoked to be the one feeling! I hadn’t been encouraged to do that in any of my other labors. When I felt, I could tell that there was still tissue between my fingers and the baby’s head. After a few more really, super duper, crazy strong, pushing-type contractions, Sue suggested I try a different position and lean back onto my bum. I did and she urged me to feel again, to see if I could feel the baby’s head. I felt again that tissue was mostly covering the baby’s head, but I could feel the edge of the tissue (my cervix) and could have slid it out of the way! The subsequent contractions had me out of my mind, it was hard, so hard, I was working so hard and really needing it to be over. Oh man.

I pushed and screamed with these contractions, after each one feeling discouraged that I was going to have to survive another. But at least I knew I was getting really, really close. By this time, sunlight was shining down on the water and reflecting, flashing on my face. I liked that a lot. The loveliness pervaded my exceedingly challenging situation.

Not soon enough the baby’s head emerged! Even though I knew from my other births that I was supposed to wait for the next contraction to push out the body, I went a little nuts and in a millisecond decided there couldn’t be one more contraction, I wouldn’t have it, and I pushed again, hard, right then and out came my baby! Sue instantaneously guided my baby into my hands. The head was in my left hand and my right hand cupped the bum, so that my middle and ring fingers were nestled into a soft and cozy scrotum! So I exclaimed, “Balls! . . . It’s a boy!!” We all yelled our hoorays!! I was thrilled to give my Jonny a brother, I told him while I was pregnant that I tried to give him a brother and I hoped so much that I would. What a great thing to look at your son, who wants a brother so much, and say, “You have a brother!!” I was in transports of delight!!

Holding those new little beings is just too much, really, I just stared at him, trying to grasp it all. I had so much to say to him and I said it, and I relished his cries, his first verbal communications!! I would set the precedent then and there and RESPOND. I kissed him over and over and explored his face and every millimeter of his little body. He was soon dubbed Sid Indy Stankovits, to be called Indy. The kids gathered to look at him. June had slept through the birth, which I consider such a blessing since I was screaming. She had been awakened and joined us now in welcoming and staring at her new baby brother. We had all so looked forward to this day, and here it was!

Soon I got out of the pool to snuggle Indy more and nurse him and try as I may, I could not comprehend his beauty nor his presence. So I marveled. Once again I am expanded, transformed. A different woman than I was the day before.





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Aveline’s rendition of my birth

July 26, 2010 – 1:27 pm

Just like every mother, ever, I derive great joy from my children’s art. Aveline is 6 and conveys such profound beauty through her drawings, and what is so wonderful to realize is that the beauty, the love, the imagination . . . is her. It comes straight from her singular, precious heart.

In light of this, I thought I’d commission her to do a piece for inspiration as I prepare for my soon coming birth. I said, “Aveline, do you think that sometime soon you would do a drawing of me giving birth to the baby?” She replied, “Do you want me to do it right now?” I said, “Just do it whenever you want.” Whenever she wanted turned out to be immediately. She asked me where I’d give birth and I told her that we might put a birthing tub in the library, but that most likely it would happen in bed, if it went fast like my last two births. I told her to put me wherever she wanted, maybe even outside. She opted for the bed and here is what she drew.

I don’t know why it should surprise me that she got the positioning so right on, with the head coming out first, after all, a little over 3 years ago she witnessed the birth of her baby sister. Still that impressed me. I love that we get an X-ray view of the baby’s body still in mine, too. She captured the most intense part of delivery in my opinion, when the head is out, the body is in, I lose my mind and inevitably ask my midwife, “What do I do now?” Those moments are so overwhelming, so beyond comprehension, so wondrous. The intense relief is moments away, the mysterious little person, inches from the skin on my chest and the embrace of my arms. Everything I’ve been dreaming of for so long is just about to really happen! Of course I’m smiling, I’m ecstatic!

I’m sure I will treasure this drawing forever. I’m sure I will want to look at it in the earlier stage of labor, and everyday from now until then. Thank you, thank you, my dear Aveline for sharing your heart with me.

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Three articles

May 8, 2009 – 9:47 pm

So, did you know that breastmilk can cure an eye infection? Or act as a gentle eye makeup remover? There are many more amazing uses of this awesome resource that God has designed into a mother’s body, here’s a link to a great article detailing this subject: Your Walking Medicine Chest

The next great article was written by yours truly! Actually it is June’s birth story, featured here on bless my birth, but now available to a wider audience (hopefully) on the OC Register’s website. Here’s a link to that: The Story of June’s Birth

And lastly, an extremely important birth story, written by my friend Sherrie, about the birth of her son Harvey, also on the website of the OC Register: Harvey’s Birth

And be sure to click on the link to Sherrie’s blog, domesticday, on the sidebar!

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longing

May 14, 2008 – 3:26 pm

 

It’s 7:15 AM and I’ve just returned from a long walk.  It is rare that I should awaken early enough and with enough gusto to take such a jaunt, but oh how glad I am that this was such a morning. 

 

I’ve been experiencing a deep longing for God.  A longing that brings me to tears when I have enough quiet to sit with it, or, as in the case of this morning, walk with it.

 

This longing is heartbreakingly blissful, which makes sense in light of paradoxical logic, which I was reading about yesterday.  Paradoxical logic posits that we can only understand Ultimate Reality through contradiction.

 

Well, I thought that I’d explain how I happened upon this longing, of course my grandiose hope is that you, too can attain this longing, but I know that our Creator, the nameless one, made us each so unique that you might happen upon something different than this, that brings you closer to a recognition of God around you in an even more personal way for you.  But I’ll go ahead with my intentions anyway.

 

I think it’s pretty basic, but we’ll see how it turns out.  

 

My longing for God began with my longing for other things.  Things that my human self has a passion for.  For instance, I LOVE brand new, newborn babies, they evoke a sense of heaven in me, I am utterly carried away to a different state of being when I approach a newborn.  The more intimate I can be with that newborn, the more carried away I am.  My experience with newborns has run the gamut, from a brief glimpse of another mother’s child in a stroller in the mall (get that baby ON you woman!), to breastfeeding the three newborn babies of my womb, just following the harrowingly exhilarating adventures of their homebirths.  I was practically manic for the latter.

 

Then there’s this house, it’s near where I live now.  It was built on the top of a hill here in the unincorporated area of Santa Ana in 1929.  It looks like a mission, and I’m not at all equipped vocabularily, to describe the edifice in architectural terms (seeing as how I make up my own words and all!), but it reminds me of a villa, it has a terra cotta tile roof and . . . Oh I just can’t bear to butcher it like this.  It’s just AMAZING!  I mean, you approach the place and you can feel it’s breath, it’s alive and it tells you fantastical stories beyond what itself has experienced.  As I passed it today I imagined it, on a secluded beach with clean powdery sand leading to warm, clear waters with a small break and THAT is my heaven.  Of course I’d be giving birth there regularly to my newborn, nursing babies!

 

Then there’s bees.  For some reason bees have struck me lately as something so amazing, actually insects in general.  I’ve been longing for a deeper understanding of insects and how their communities operate (if you feel the same, I recommend the DVD series Insectia with Georges Brossard, it is available at the Orange Public Library).  Insects are so far ahead of mankind in many ways, they are complexly miraculous in their capabilities and activities.

 

Okay, okay, you get it.  Well, my longings, my human longings, when I sit with them and I feel them and maybe examine them a little (though I try my darnedest NOT to intellectualize them), they ARE my longing for God.  This notion was suggested to me in the book The Awakened Heart by Gerald May, MD (who should be sainted in my opinion).  We are human beings, created in the image of God, everything human is of God, and yes, we are capable of sin and evil, but not by longing.  When I consecrate my longings, in prayer, I feel God.  I long for God, and life becomes so sparkling, warm, shining and loving, including all people and the longing deepens.  The more I recognize the longing the more I long.

 

The things that God created, human women with our wombs, breasts and babies, bees with their “find-the-food” dances, even the creations of man, like that awesome house, they all reflect God in some way.  And as I sit here, being a human, longing for the things that speak to my heart, I am longing for God and he’s here, ministering to me in words I cannot comprehend and in feelings I cannot describe.  I want to get closer to God, but that notion makes me feel like I have to DO something to get there, or LEARN something to get there, but that is not the state of things, of He and I.  He’s here, always, and surrounding me in the things I love and long for, always.  The more I long for Him, the more I feel Him and then I long even more.

 

What do you long for?  What is the height of inspiration for you?  What are the things that happen that make your heart either squeeze tight in your chest, or feel like it’s going to swell to the size of Texas?  What causes you to need to catch your breath?  Is it beauty surrounding you in your own creative expression?  THAT reflects God.  Do you long for delicious food that delights your tongue?  THAT reflects God.  What do YOU, personally long for?  Optimum development for your children?  World Peace?  To eat yoghurt on a balcony over the Mediterranean, of one of those beautiful structures on the island of Santorini, the ones where the domed roofs were painted to match the sky?  Do you long to meet and unite with a soul mate with whom you can share the minutiae of daily life?  Whatever you long for is YOUR way to your own heart where you can love and long for God.  He’s there.  Pay attention to your reaction to things, look for God in those that delight you and lead you to longing and find quiet stillness to sit there with that, even if that means admitting something that you’ve tried to fool yourself out of, don’t be afraid to stay there, even if you feel strong emotions taking hold.  Consecrate your longings in prayer and God will minister to you in ways you don’t comprehend and you might not realize it at first, but look for those feelings that you cannot describe, that’s how you’ll know.        

 

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Genesis 3:16

January 22, 2008 – 10:57 pm

I derived much inspiration from this commentary. One thing I find especially pertinent about it is that Matthew Henry does not refer to Eve’s “curse” as a curse, at all, nor as a “punishment” either, but rather as a sentence.

God’s design for childbirth is perfect, perfect way beyond our understanding of it. There are things that occur automatically in the course of childbirth that exhibit this. For more details on these automatic things, please read the article entitled Ecstatic Birth, by Sarah J. Buckley, MD. It details the hormones that are in action during labor that cause such things as bonding and mutual dependency between mother and baby. The experience, the hormones, the “pain,” the work, the blissful rest between contractions, all of it should be taken as a whole, and as perfect in it’s design. No part of it should be omitted. It all serves to prepare us for motherhood.

For this reason, the use of the English word “curse” doesn’t seem like the best choice in translating the concept of the sentence that God ordained for all women through Eve, as a result of her sin.

For more on the language of childbirth in the Bible, see my blog A Letter I Wrote to Mothering Magazine.

Now here, enjoy Matthew Henry’s commentary on . . .

Gen 3:16

We have here the sentence passed upon the woman for her sin. Two things she is condemned to: a state of sorrow, and a state of subjection, proper punishments of a sin in which she had gratified her pleasure and her pride.

I. She is here put into a state of sorrow, one particular of which only is specified, that in bringing forth children; but it includes all those impressions of grief and fear which the mind of that tender sex is most apt to receive, and all the common calamities which they are liable to. Note, Sin brought sorrow into the world; it was this that made the world a vale of tears, brought showers of trouble upon our heads, and opened springs of sorrows in our hearts, and so deluged the world: had we known no guilt, we should have known no grief. The pains of child-bearing, which are great to a proverb, a scripture proverb, are the effect of sin; every pang and every groan of the travailing woman speak aloud the fatal consequences of sin: this comes of eating forbidden fruit. Observe, 1. The sorrows are here said to be multiplied, greatly multiplied. All the sorrows of this present time are so; many are the calamities which human life is liable to, of various kinds, and often repeated, the clouds returning after the rain, and no marvel that our sorrows are multiplied when our sins are: both are innumerable evils. The sorrows of child-bearing are multiplied; for they include, not only the travailing throes, but the indispositions before (it is sorrow from the conception), and the nursing toils and vexations after; and after all, if the children prove wicked and foolish, they are, more than ever, the heaviness of her that bore them. Thus are the sorrows multiplied; as one grief is over, another succeeds in this world. 2. It is God that multiplies our sorrows: I will do it. God, as a righteous Judge, does it, which ought to silence us under all our sorrows; as many as they are, we have deserved them all, and more: nay, God, as a tender Father, does it for our necessary correction, that we may be humbled for sin, and weaned from the world by all our sorrows; and the good we get by them, with the comfort we have under them, will abundantly balance our sorrows, how greatly soever they are multiplied.

II. She is here put into a state of subjection. The whole sex, which by creation was equal with man, is, for sin, made inferior, and forbidden to usurp authority, 1 Tim. 2:11, 12. The wife particularly is hereby put under the dominion of her husband, and is not sui juris—at her own disposal, of which see an instance in that law, Num. 30:6-8, where the husband is empowered, if he please, to disannul the vows made by the wife. This sentence amounts only to that command, Wives, be in subjection to your own husbands; but the entrance of sin has made that duty a punishment, which otherwise it would not have been. If man had not sinned, he would always have ruled with wisdom and love; and, if the woman had not sinned, she would always have obeyed with humility and meekness; and then the dominion would have been no grievance: but our own sin and folly make our yoke heavy. If Eve had not eaten forbidden fruit herself, and tempted her husband to eat it, she would never have complained of her subjection; therefore it ought never to be complained of, though harsh; but sin must be complained of, that made it so. Those wives who not only despise and disobey their husbands, but domineer over them, do not consider that they not only violate a divine law, but thwart a divine sentence.

III. Observe here how mercy is mixed with wrath in this sentence. The woman shall have sorrow, but it shall be in bringing forth children, and the sorrow shall be forgotten for joy that a child is born, Jn. 16:21. She shall be subject, but it shall be to her own husband that loves her, not to a stranger, or an enemy: the sentence was not a curse, to bring her to ruin, but a chastisement, to bring her to repentance. It was well that enmity was not put between the man and the woman, as there was between the serpent and the woman.


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