The countdown to baby continues for Noelle and Zach.  Since my last post, they have:

• found out they are having a boy!
• interviewed a natural birth-friendly doctor and interviewed a midwife
• finalized which country they will raise this wee one in
• decided on their birth location and care provider
• signed up for a childbirth class

After much prayer, Noelle and Zach have chosen to birth at home with a midwife.  It would have been an easy choice if their insurance would cover any part of it.  It doesn’t.  But their insurance offers fantastic hospital coverage–they would have very little out-of-pocket expense.  For a young couple preparing to quit their jobs and trust entirely on financial support for their ministry, it was a big deal to choose a homebirth.

Let me interject here that the new healthcare plan–and, no, I will not offer an opinion!–will require insurance to cover certified professional midwives at birth centers.  This change is wonderful but it reveals a common misunderstanding about birth centers.  The birth center is not different in terms of equipment and training than a home.  The homebirth midwife brings the same supplies and equipment as she uses at a birth center.  For the plan to cover one and not the other simply because of the setting seems silly to me.   

And…the wee baby boy will grow up (drum roll) in Cambodia.  His parents have spent time there before and are excited to return.  Noelle will once again be working with children who are victims of sex trafficking.  Zach will be working with an unreached people group. 

Now here is a question for my readers.  If you lived in a country with only cold water for washing clothes, which cloth diapers would you choose and how would you wash them?  Would you use bleach to kill bacteria?  Something else?  And this is a place in which bacteria can be ugly.