Fasting, Pregnancy, and Proving Myself

There was a tradition of fasting at the mission. This was meant to bring you closer to God and give you more time for study and prayer. Most of the time these fasts were maybe a week long, more or less. This was really only supposed to be for the adults, but I started out with a one day fast when I was just 14. It was hard but I was proud that I could actually do it. Then I progressed to 3 days, and then a week, and then one time I did 12 days. On these fasts, we could drink water and we could also drink Pepsi and could suck on hard candy, but nothing truly nutritional was allowed.

Holy Ground sign at the entrance to the property in Texas.

Jesus and Moses fasted for 40 days

In the Bible, there are scriptures that refer to 40 day fasts. Jesus fasted for 40 days after he was baptized by John the Baptist. In Matthew, chapter 4: "Then Jesus was led by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. After fasting forty days and forty nights, he was hungry." Moses also fasted 40 days when he was on Mount Sinai before he brought down the 10 commandments. (Exodus 34:28). Tom had decided that this would be a way of testing your faith, a way to prove how serious you were to solidifying your relationship to God. No one was forced to take this on; it was a choice for sure. There were 2 times a year that we did this as a group. Most people tried to do 3 of the 40 day fasts in a lifetime. Not everyone participated, but there were a lot of people who did.

Since I was married and therefore now an adult, I wanted to do my first 40 day fast. As a headstrong teenager, I was determined to prove to everyone that I was an adult, and I felt there was no better way to do this then to do my first 40 day fast! The fast began about 2 weeks after we were married. I did okay for the first 10 days and then I started really having some issues. I felt sick every day and was throwing up several times a day. Linda and Margaret wouldn't let me be in the kitchen at all because I just couldn't handle the smells. They suggested to me that maybe I was pregnant and it might be morning sickness. I blew them off because after all, how could I possibly be pregnant? I just got married! (I really knew very little about how all of this worked.) I had missed my monthly but that wasn't uncommon with women who did a fast like this, so I was certain that was the reason.

The little cabin in Texas that Larry and I lived in when we first got married.

Toward the beginning of February we moved from Mexico back to the mission in Texas and settled into a small cabin where Larry had lived as a bachelor. When I first got married, I was 5'2" and weighed about 115 pounds. By the end of the 40 day fast, my weight had gone to 89 lbs. I felt awful and was continuing to throw up every day. But, no one could talk me out of completing the fast. I was a very stubborn. I don't really know if anyone could have gotten me to quit, but I don't remember anyone trying to get me to quit. I was so weak that I couldn't sit in a chair. I would try but because my muscles just couldn't hold me up, I would sit and then just slide right off the chair. There is a great camaraderie in doing this all together as a large group. We would spend a lot of time dreaming about how we were going to break the fast when that day finally came. We would even do some cooking and freeze stuff in preparation for the day that we would be eating again. Sometimes the days were so long and with the very low energy I had, I slept away a lot of the day.

So Much Food!

Finally, it was time to break the fast and actually eat! I remember the day we broke that first 40 day fast. We had a table full of all different kinds of food and it looked and smelled so awesome. Unfortunately, after not having food for so long, we were not able to eat much. We would take a couple of bites and then we would get incredibly thirsty; we drank so much water! And after trying to eat, oh how exhausted we were! I think we just slept the rest of the day. When I was fasting it was really difficult to drink water at all, but after I ate something, I was so incredibly thirsty. Just couldn't get enough water then!

After the fast was over, I quickly began to regain my health and my weight. I was glad to get back to feeling more like myself. I have always had a good bit of energy and used to run everywhere I went instead of walking. I was very proud of myself for actually completing the 40 days of fasting. And when I broke the fast I did spot a little and was telling everyone, "See there! I knew I wasn't pregnant." But then I missed the next one and decided that I would see the doctor to make sure. I had been married for about 4 months now so it was certainly possible. And yes, he did confirm that I was pregnant. I said to him, "So, I'm about 2 months along, right?" But he said that no I was actually 4 months along. I was astonished! I couldn't believe it really. That would indicate that I got pregant in the first 10 days of getting married. I started to understand more about how all of this works!

Of course, I was concerned that the 40 day fast might have caused a problem, so I immediately began to do whatever I could to make sure I was healthy. I walked a lot every day, and I made sure that I was eating lots of fruits and vegetables and drinking my milk. It was summertime then, and the Texas heat was really bearing down on us. My due date was October 10 and I was now about 7 months along. My grandmother, Mary Lou, was so nice and offered for me to come stay with her for 3 weeks. What a relief! Air conditioning!! I felt incredible and it was an amazing time. I never forgot her kindness. Plus, Larry was gone for most of the summer on different trips with the men, and I was so terribly lonely. I moved into the big house with Priscilla and her family while he was away because I was so alone and it really helped a lot for me to be with her and her big family. She showed me how she made pancakes and orange juice every Sunday morning. It was so nice just to be in the big house again with lots of people. I felt like I was a part of a family again.

My mom was a midwife and had delivered several babies, and I so much wanted to have my baby at home! I was such a flower child that I didn't want to take any drugs—just have it naturally. But she had a rule that, if it was your first child, you needed to go to the hospital. She did feel that it would be beneficial for me to be in the delivery room with her to observe so I could see how it all worked. I was able to watch 2 babies being born, and it sure did make a difference in helping me know what to expect! One of the women had such an easy time and I was so encouraged. The second woman had a bigger baby, and when he was born, he actually had the cord wrapped around his neck but my mom was able to get it unwrapped and he was okay. That was really scary, though!

Having my baby

My first baby was a very easy delivery! She came a couple days before my due date. I had had a few pains in the night but nothing major. Then at 5:30 that morning my water broke. My parents drove Larry and me to the hospital and she was born at 8:30 that morning! I remember the nurse kept asking me if I wanted drugs for the pain and I kept saying no. She even went into the hall and asked Larry and Tom why were they making me do this without drugs? And they assured her they had nothing to do with it! They didn't have the fancy epidurals at that time that they do now, but I did have what they called a saddle block and that was given just a a short time before she was born. I think it really helped a lot.

This is me standing outside of the small cabin that we lived in holding my newborn.

An additional photo of me with my first baby girl.

Larry holding our first baby girl.

All in all, it was a great experience! I got a lot of attention and support from the other women and from Larry for those first couple of weeks. I remember that some of the women would come and help me with folding diapers and washing clothes and cleaning our little cabin. It was amazing to have such lovely support from the community. My grandmother came to visit and gave me a beautiful crocheted blanket for the baby she had made. It was pink, green and white and was in the ripple stitch pattern. I learned all about how to deal with diapers and how to wrap my baby girl up in blankets and how to rock her to sleep. I really wanted to nurse her for so many reasons. It was easy and natural and didn't cost anything. But there were so many things I didn't know. When she was 3 weeks old, My breast became infected and I developed a high fever. My doctor advised that I had to quit nursing, and I felt like such a failure as a mother. Plus, formula was way too expensive and how was I going to feed her now? Most everyone at the mission who didn't nurse their babies used canned Carnation milk to feed them, so that's what I did. It was almost Novermber by then and starting to get cooler. For the little cabin we lived in, we only needed a very small pot-bellied wood stove to keep it warm. We also used this to heat up water for bathing. So, when she needed a bottle in the night, we had to start the fire and heat it up. It wasn't easy. We were able to add a small apartment-size gas stove later, and that was so awesome!

So Much Laundry

My first child was a very easy and happy baby, and we started to get into a rhythm. For diapers, we only had the cloth type. They were thin and retangular shaped and had to be folded "just so" so they would fit her. Then we had to carefully use a big diaper pin (sort of like a safety pin) to keep them on and then rubber pants to go over them to keep them from getting their clothes wet. We didn't have regular plumbing in the cabin and used a 5 gallon bucket for our toilet. We had an additional 5 gallon bucket that we put water and some bleach in for soaking the diapers. We would put the wet diapers in here to soak and the soiled ones had to be dumped in the other one and then rinsed into the bleach one. Then when it came time to wash them, we would wring them all out and take them down to the laundry house. In order to have hot water to wash the diapers in we had to put a huge pot of water on the stove and heat it up. The we would wash them in hot soapy water and then put them through the wringer into the first rinse tub, and then put them through the wringer again, and then into the second rinse tub. Then back through the wringer and out to the clothesline and hang them to dry. On a fairly windy day they would be so so soft! Once I took them down, they had to be folded to be ready for use! I know this sounds like a a lot of work—and it was! But, for some reason, I didn't mind doing it.

Me holding my first baby. She was about 8 months old here.

I Have to Take Her to the Doctor

When she was about 2 weeks old, I noticed something on my baby that resembled a birthmark, but it seemed a bit raised. After another week, it seemed even a bit bigger. I knew that if I asked to take her to the doctor, I would be told no. We almost never went to the doctor for anything unless it was a broken bone or there was a lot of blood and might need stitches. I was certain that I would need to fight Tom to let me take her to the doctor. I was scared to have this confrontation, but, this was my baby! I just had to do what was right for her. I decided that no matter what happened, I was going to have to do something. That morning, I marched down to the men's meeting that was happening in the dining hall. The men had meetings every morning around 8:00 and the women were not allowed to go. But I walked in and walked right up to Tom and showed him what I was seeing on my baby. I said, "You have to do something about this!" He looked at it and said, "We'll pray about it." I knew that is what his answer was to just about anything that he didn't really have an answer for. I turned to him with all the courage I could muster and said, "No, we won't pray about it! I have to take her to a doctor!" I think I heard audible gasps from some of the men. Tom paused and then said, "Well, we will pray about it and if isn't better in 3 days, then you can take her to the doctor." I said ok and left. I was happy that I was able to stand up to him and get her a visit to the doctor. But, I was visibly shaken by this. I had always done whatever he told us to do. At that time, I believed that he was God's vessel. and God was speaking to us through him. But I had started wondering how much of this was really true. And I knew that my baby was depending on me. That's what gave me the strength to stand up to him.

Of course, it didn't get better in 3 days and I was able to take her to the doctor. He referred me to a specialist who inspected it and said it would need to be treated once a month for at least 18 months. He had seen other cases like this and said if it wasn't treated could have grown much bigger and might left her very disfigured! So, that is what we did, and you can't even see it now. I'm so so glad that I stood up to him in that instance. My beautiful baby girl had to go through a lot of trauma because of it, but now you would never know it ever existed.

Just Like a Normal Family

Picture of McDonald's from the 70's

One thing that was really a nice and such a blessing for us was that this required a trip into Tyler, Texas, which was about 30 minutes away. Larry and I made a day of it. We would take her to the appointment and then we would go to McDonalds and have lunch and stay as long as we could. Even though she was an infant and the doctor's visit was traumatic, this extra time with us and getting to go to McDonald's made it seem like we were just a normal family. Even if it was only once a month. While I hated taking her to the doctor every month for her treatment, I also looked forward to being able to do something together away from the mission, like a normal family.

Key Words: Fasting, Pregnancy,