It’s been one of my goals for 2024 to resume blogging. I’ve made many attempts in the past year, but I always either seemed not to be able to finish a post or felt disingenuous to post what I had written. As time went on, I felt all the more pressure for the post to break the silence to be the most epic and deepest piece ever written. So I just didn’t. I couldn’t. Perhaps it’s a testament to my failure to walk closely to the Lord — to hear his voice, to heed to his teaching. But I pray that this post, though poorly written, I may testify to the unconditional and faithful love of my Abba Father and bring glory all the more to him. 

Since my last post, I got pregnant and gave birth to my second child, Paul Livingstone Park. It’s meaningful to me that this blog was inspired by the birth of my daughter, Dani. It’s like a new birth with this current post about my journey bearing Paul. Paul was conceived in or around September 2023. I found out I was pregnant week 6 and then week 7, morning sickness hit me like a truck…again. Anyone who has read my first pregnancy reflections will know that my morning sickness was bad with Dani. Like BAD. But it was exactly the same experience this time. I was vomiting up to 6 times a day, not able to keep down anything, not even water. By week 9, I was barfing up blood because of the stomach acid eroding my esophagus. Every day was a struggle, not just because of the discomfort but simply not knowing when the suffering would end. What makes suffering unbearable is hopelessness. It’s not just about the pain, it’s about the trajectory of that pain. When you can’t see that trajectory, when it becomes unpredictable or uncontrollable, the pain just feels infinity times worse. There were days I was so overcome by my hunger, thirst, and nausea that I would break down in tears and scream with frustration. I felt depressed, without motivation or strength to do anything. I couldn’t even be thankful about being pregnant, I just wanted to feel okay again. Everyday, I would google about severe morning sickness, desperate to find somebody who understood my pain. I found that there are women out there whose morning sickness is so bad, they commit abortion or suicide. “Either I go, the baby goes, or we both go” they say. It was comforting in a way to know that other people have gone through what I have gone through, and have even had it worse. But at the same time, it didn’t make my pain go away. It was still a cross that I, alone, had to endure each day. 

It’s weird to think about it now because I’m at the breastfeeding stage which means my hunger is insatiable and I’m constantly eating. But I remember thinking about physical and mental suffering a lot – how real it is, how lonely it is, how much it can alter one’s whole reality and experience of life. It comes to a point where you don’t know what it means to be “you” anymore, or what a “normal” life feels like. You’re just surviving, trying to get to the night so you can sleep, and then trying to get to the morning because you can’t sleep. Physical suffering also takes a toll on one’s spiritual health. In those months, I could barely get out of my bed,  not even to pray or read my bible. Everything I knew from the Word seemed to not matter so much anymore and the only thing I could pray was, “God, help me”. There was one night, I was barfing my guts out and I was so hungry, so mentally and emotionally and physically drained, that I cried, screamed, and then prayed, “God, I just want to be able to sleep tonight. Can you give me some relief?” Amazingly, that night, I slept like a baby, the best sleep I had during the whole pregnancy. It was a miracle to me, truly. Not just the fact that I could sleep, it was the realization that God is my God who hears the tiniest, mustard-seed-of-faith prayers. It was as if he was saying to me, “Paulina, I haven’t forgotten about you. I hear you. And I am suffering with you.” For the first time that pregnancy, I thought about my suffering Lord. We think he doesn’t know our real, lonely, “petty” sufferings. But he does. He knows because he is the Word that became flesh to dwell among us. Not only that but he died our death. He had a body with bones and blood that literally bore the punishment of our sin with nails and thorns and lashes. Only by his wounds, we are healed. 

“He himself bore our sins in his body on the cross, so that we might die to sins and live for righteousness; ‘by his wounds you have been healed’.” 1 Peter 2: 4

As I meditated on this verse, it came to me that suffering in God is precious because it leads to life. Suffering for sin leads to death. But in God, all suffering leads to sanctification, to closer intimacy with Christ, to greater hope for eternal glory — eternal life. Though I might not see the trajectory of my current suffering, I know the end, that end is Christ, and that gives me reason to hope. This realization brought meaning to my morning sickness – quite literally, I was suffering to give birth to a new life. I understood that my current suffering was precious, though (or thus) costly, because by it another might live. 

Paul Livingstone Park was born May 31st, 2024. The weeks and days leading up to his birth were pretty normal. I didn’t feel anything other than my belly was getting huge and heavy. I had read a ton of stories online of how people had contractions for days before actually giving birth and then another ton of stories of how they went into labour and a couple hours later, their baby was in their arms. No pattern, no way to predict when it would happen. The reality of labour gave me perspective on what Jesus meant when he said that the end will come like a woman in labour. There’s no knowing when the labour will start, but when it does, it’ll get increasingly more intense and then the baby will come. 

On May 30th morning my mucus plug came out (I noticed it in my morning pee). That day for lunch, I ate the spiciest bowl of Korean Army-Base Stew because I heard that spicy food can speed up the labour process. (I didn’t think it would actually work.) Then I went to the zoo with Joshua and Dani and walked around for 4 hours. By the evening, I felt some cramping in my lower abdomen but didn’t know that that was the beginning of my contractions. I took a shower and went to bed at around 10:30pm. Around 11pm, I felt a *pop* in my belly and a gush of water come out. My water had broken. Right after that, my contractions were about 30 seconds long and 5 minutes apart. I was in active labour. Joshua and I ubered down to St. Mike’s Hospital and I was taken straight to triage. The contractions got way more intense there. The best way I can describe contraction pain is feeling like you gotta take the biggest dump, the most intense bowel movement you’ve ever felt. It’s feet-curling, teeth-clenching pain. 

The hospital was understaffed that night so there was one nurse checking on four of us in triage. After 1 or 2 agonizing hours of contractions in triage, the nurse came to check my cervix and said I was fully dilated and that Paul was completely effaced (dropped into my pelvis). There is so much power in words. When I heard that, I got so excited thinking that I had gone through contractions without taking an epidural and that soon it would all be over. But that rush of energy was totally sapped from me when I was taken to the delivery room and the resident informed me that the nurse had wrongly assessed me and I was only 5cm dilated. I would have at least 4 more hours of contractions. At this point, I accepted an epidural. I was really mixed about getting an epidural because of everything I had heard about the risks that come with it, including more severe tearing down there. But I figured that if I had 4 more hours of this, I might as well get the epidural and sleep some before it’s time to really push. I also got this strange sense of guilt after because it crossed my mind – if I was going through this much pain for the name of Jesus, would I be able to endure it? Would I give in to an epidural? I prayed and hoped that I wouldn’t. 

The epidural did not work that well on me. The anesthesiologist told me that I have scoliosis and as a result, the numbing effect would not be as strong and I would still feel the contractions. Which is true; I felt each one and did not sleep a wink that night. I was induced 2 hours later because my dilation was progressing slowly. That’s when everything really ramped up. I believe I was fully diallated and ready to push 30 minutes or so after the induction, but no nurse was checking on me. I regret not calling a nurse earlier and listening to my gut intuition, because by the time finally someone checked on me 2 hours later, the pressure from the contractions were too strong that I couldn’t control my pushing and I ended up tearing all the way from my vagina to my anus ( a “fourth degree tear”). 

Currently, I am 4 weeks postpartum. This recovery time has been quite difficult, not just because of the physical pain but with the thought of what could have been prevented. So, about the fourth degree tear — apparently these are very uncommon and I happen to fall into the 6% of labouring women that get them. It is probable to get some sort of infection with such a severe tear which, I’ve heard from several testimonies, is more painful than labour. The first week, I was checking on my tear up to 5 times a day, and googling every single new sensation or symptom that came up. For example, a week after delivery, I noticed that little bits of stool were coming out of my vagina and found that this might be a sign of a fistula, aka a hole in the perineum wall that separates the vaginal canal and the rectum. I waited 6 hours in the emergency room because of that scare. The next week, I felt a sort of heaviness in my pelvic area and researched that this could indicate uterine prolapse which is when your uterus drops into your vaginal canal and can even come out. I frantically called my OB/GYN to make sure I could get that checked out. Turns out I had neither a fistula or a prolapse Thank God!). There are a lot of angry words I could say about the hospital, the poor staff, the negligent conduct, but I choose to believe God’s sovereignty and listen to what he wants me to learn through it and despite of it. 

On top of all this, I was desperately missing Dani who had gone back to Sao Paulo with Joshua a week after delivery. I didn’t know I was capable of missing a person so much. For the past 2.5 years, I have never been apart from her for longer than 12 hours, and soon I will not have seen her for nearly 4 weeks. She contracted a fever a week after leaving Toronto, which lasted for 7 days. Joshua brought her to the hospital and there, she was diagnosed with bronchitis. Joshua told me that she cried, “Omma, omma” almost every night, which broke my heart. I felt so guilty for coming to Canada and sending her back. I felt so helpless because apparently it took 6-8 weeks to register a birth in Ontario which is necessary to apply for the birth certificate and then a passport. The thought of waiting up to 3 months not seeing Dani was unthinkable to me and I did everything I could to expedite the process – I called Service Ontario almost every day, I even called my MPP. The stress of all these anxieties made me break down in tears multiple times a day. I couldn’t pray, I couldn’t read the bible, I couldn’t eat or sleep properly. All I could feel was panic and fear and anxiety. 

I’ve come to realize is that I have a lot more anxiety than I thought. I  prided myself in being perceived as very chill, secure, stable. I also was confident, as cocky as that sounds now, that I was not afraid to die because I have hope in the kingdom of God, and “Jesus is sufficient for me”. I thought, I know the secret of being content, I can be joyful always, because I know Jesus is alive and he is with me. But in these short few weeks, I realized that I am afraid to lose my health, my family, myself. God made me reach my limit until I might finally turn the Lord and find perfect and uncontainable rest in him. I turned to him because there was indeed no where else to turn to. I deeply realized that. There were some nights I really couldn’t sleep. One night, I lay there in bed so full of anxiety, desperate for one word of encouragement from the Lord. He gave me Philippians 4: 6-7, “Do not be anxious about anything but in everything, in prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your request to God. And the peace of God that transcends all understanding will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.” I began meditating on it. 

God commands against anxiety because anxiety is a form of the power of death. Death has no power over one who believes in Jesus. John 11: 25, “I am the resurrection and the life. He who lives and believes in me will live even though he dies and he who lives and believes in me will never die.” But he also gives the way to overcome anxiety. That is through prayer, and not just asking, but thanking. Thanksgiving is a sign of faith in God’s goodness. This thanksgiving is unconditional, or should be, ultimately pointing us to the fact that God has already given us his Son – how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things? Even if we were at death’s very door, we are to thank God because our lives are hidden with God in Christ. Our hope is living and eternal; secure forever. Nothing, no attack of the enemy, can ever take that away. I began to see that Satan was using all these situational things to lose sight of my true hope, my true joy, and my true reward which is Jesus Christ. These weeks were truly a test of my love for Jesus and my hope in him. I think I failed, but God’s grace continues to teach me and leads me to repentance and renewed faith. Thank you, Abba. 

God taught me something really new, too: The love of the Father. As much as I ached to see Dani, touch her face, cuddle with her, hear her voice, not to mention all the stress I went through finding some way to get to her as soon as possible, I realized this is only a tiny fraction of God’s heart to see and reach me, his daughter.  There were times I would FaceTime Joshua to talk to Dani and she wouldn’t even look at the phone or say “Omma”, she just wanted to hang up. I cried so many tears the past 4 weeks just thinking about her. That rejection was so painful. But it hit me that that is too often my heart towards God. The God that reserved nothing to reach a sinner like me. He runs to me excitedly and yet I treat him with disinterest as I lustfully chase other things, idols really. It was like he was saying to me, “Paulina, don’t you see, I miss you so much and my greatest desire is just to be with you. I gave up my own Son for that. Will you not turn to me and be excited to talk to me? Will you not love me with the love I love you?” Perhaps the greatest love that exists is a parent’s love for their child. And perhaps the greatest pain is a child’s rejection of that love. How pained my Father God’s heart has been with my apathy, my disinterest, my superficial “hello”, my heartless “I love you”. He doesn’t want our love because we have to love him but because we want to, because we see just how much he loves us. If only Dani would know how much I love her and love me knowing how much I love her. I don’t want lip service or fakeness from her, I want her heart. Yes Lord, this is what you want from me too. 

I think the main thing that God has been impressing on my heart throughout this year is the amazing gift of his presence. I leave this whole experience tempted to feel angry, traumatized, bitter, and worried for the unknown. This is certainly what the enemy wants. I experienced the greatest physical and mental and emotional pain I ever had, the greatest anxieties, the greatest heartbreak, not to mention lack of sleep and the craziness of raging hormones. If all I do is question God, “Why? Why me?” I am left at a dark, dead end. But his word speaks loud and clear in my heart: “Give thanks in all circumstances” and so I choose to say, “Thank you” despite of what I feel. How is that possible? Because his promise is that he is the word that became flesh and his flesh died on that cross with me. There is no suffering or sorrow that he does not know and has already walked through with me. There is no pain that he is not already felt. In my suffering, I can go into even deeper fellowship with my Lord and Abba Father that longs so eagerly to dwell with me. “Just be with me. Trust.” In these past weeks, I’ve felt great pain but I felt the closeness of God that I have not experienced in a very long time. I felt him cry with me and wipe my tears, I felt him embrace me when my heart was pinching with a thousand needles, I felt him hold me in my tiredness. I met my Abba Father. He is near. He is Immanuel. He loves me. He is good. He is all-powerful. He is in control. He is sufficient. He is enough. Always. Forever. For that I am thankful and joyful and, to the glory of God, victorious. 

Thank you, Immanuel. My greatest desire is to be with you, too.