Trust Part I: Trusting Nature

There are some pretty nice perks to living in Jewish Brooklyn. 

For one, there’s the convenience of having practically any product you’d need available in Kosher or Jewish form, not to mention dozens of restaurants and cafes to choose from for any occasion.

And while there’s what to say about its lack of green spaces and playgrounds, overall it’s a pretty family-friendly place to be. 

When it comes to giving birth in Brooklyn, there’s some very real advantages too. 

The hospital staff gets you, because they’re seeing others like you every day. 

Practically as you walk in you’re signed up for kosher meals and an extra hospital robe, kosher formula for your baby, and consideration for your Shabbos observance. They know about the husband-behind-the-curtain-reading-from-the-book shtick, and about the shir hamaalos signs we hang up all over. I don’t need to breathe a word about a thing; they know me. And they respect my wishes.

I don’t know how it would be at a different practice. But I know that at my postpartum appointment, when they ask the routine question about birth control and I politely decline, they never say another word. 

And I am grateful for it. 

It seems to me that unlike the opinion on the street (or the web, for that matter), these midwives realize that it isn’t dangerous to have children back-to-back. Even six of them. Sure, if there was a medical issue or some other reason they determined that I couldn’t do it, they would certainly tell me–as I’m sure some women are told. 

But when there isn’t an issue, they respect our values. They appreciate that we believe in trusting G-d to make these decisions for us and that we trust Him to give us whatever we need to cope with it. 

Sometimes I think they respect us more than we respect ourselves. 

What if they weren’t so understanding? What if they, like so many others I’ve encountered, pestered me with the “common wisdom” or “doctor’s recommendations” of having “at least a year” between pregnancies? Would I respect my values enough to firmly decline? Or would I hear them out, pretend to be interested in something or another until I could find my way out of the room? Or would I possibly allow their arguments to enter my consciousness and doubt my choices? 

Before I began this project, it would probably be the latter. 

Because as much as we’re used to being different, we like to be normal. Especially in Brooklyn, when being religious hardly makes you different at all. And certainly when it comes to health and modern medicine. 

Is Nature Outdated?

You might not believe it based on the culture today, but in the early 1900’s and as late as the 1960’s, breastfeeding your own baby was seen as primitive. The average woman in my grandmother’s generation (even the very religious ones) fed her babies formula, believing that it was healthier and more civilized than nursing. While it may have been traditional for Jewish women to nurse their children (as recorded many times in the Tanach and the Talmud), there is no halacha requiring it when there is a perfectly adequate alternative. Breastfeeding was considered a relic of the past, along with the farmer’s yoke and blacksmith’s anvil of previous centuries.

It took until the very end of the twentieth century for the public and the medical community to finally acknowledge the tremendous natural benefits of nursing. While formula remains a valid option for those who need or prefer it, breastfeeding exclusively is now strongly encouraged.

There is something to be said about the natural system that our bodies were built with. The more it is studied, the more science comes to realize that even the greatest technologies have more to gain by learning from nature than from stifling it. 

After all, “Mother Nature” is an actual being. His real name is G-d. And his wisdom is endless. 

Interestingly, in the past few decades a new type of scientific research was developed called “biomimetics” or “biomimicry.” Scientists study nature’s models and work to imitate its designs and processes to solve human problems. Probably the most famous example is the imitation of birds and bats in the development of airplanes. It’s also been used in the fields of construction, adhesive materials, self-healing materials, agricultural systems, and the list goes on.

G-d (“Mother Nature”) did not lose it when it came to fertility. Our bodies have but a few decades when they are capable of getting pregnant. Little children cannot give birth, and neither can older women. Young women cannot get pregnant while they are already pregnant (relieving, I know!). 

But young women can get pregnant a short while after giving birth, whether it’s a couple of months or a short year. They can have multiple children in a few short years because their bodies are built for it. Conception and birth are not outdated functions that need to be “controlled” across the board in order for women to be healthy. The only birth control advised by G-d across the board are all of the laws about forbidden relations in the Torah – in short, marry one man not too closely related to you and be in a committed relationship before you have a child. In G-d’s book, it is not good to have children outside of marriage. That is positive birth control.

G-d designed us to have many children because that’s what He wanted. “Be fruitful and multiply” was not just a command to Adam but to all of humanity. G-d believed, and told us so, that the more people that are born, the better it is for the world.

Not all of his commands are easy, and there are certainly stages and seasons when the child-a-year seems like a load of intense work. But growing up in a family of ten children as close in age as I did, and raising the five (so far) that I have been blessed with, I have seen firsthand how much the benefits outweigh the struggles. 

Don’t let the people who have never lived with a large family convince you otherwise. A sibling is a blessing. More siblings equal more blessings. And more joy, more love, more growth, more confidence and more independence.

Too often there are medical or other reasons that we just can’t do it. All the more reason to embrace the blessing whenever we possibly can. 

You can trust the one who designed you and each of the children you already have – He knows what he’s doing.