I did it - Part I

Well, I did it. I coerced my friend/debate partner at work to verbalize a logical contradiction. I'd like to think that means that I win, since by contradicting yourself in the same sentence you are deemed "babbling" (eg "I hate potato chips, but I love potatoes that are sliced really thinly and then fried, flavored, bagged and sold in grocery stores."). The topic was abortion, and she was using many of the "old standards," which we'll look at one by one in a series of posts over the next few weeks. Today's argument will be the ever-popular, "I'm not for abortion, but I'm for the right of a woman to choose what she wants to do with her own body."


What a grand idea - a woman being able to do as she pleases with her own body (and, by default, life)? Well, that's fine, if you're evaluating that statement verbatim. I fully believe that a woman should have the right to be in control of her own life and even her body, and make choices for herself as she sees fit, right? Choose a Volvo over a Hyundai (although I really like the Sonatas)? Absolutely. Pursue a career as a mortgage broker vs. a district manager for a retail outlet? Definitely. Eat a whole container of lard over crackers and ruin her heart/arteries? If she wants to. Smoke pot until her brain doesn't function properly anymore? I guess so (although there are consequences for actions, and there should be no complaining when they set in). But when you're talking about abortion, that sentence can no longer read as it was dictated, because you're actually supporting the right of a woman to choose what she wants to do with her own body, AS WELL AS the body growing inside of hers (which could be a woman's, by the way). So it should be reworded to say "I'm not for abortion, but I'm for the right of a woman to choose what she wants to do with her own body and life, as well as her unborn baby's body and life."


Now, let's look at her statement for just a moment. "I'm not for abortion..." Why would she say that, given her position on the argument? She's pro-abortion, or "pro-choice" (of course, the "choice" being given is the choice to kill your child if you want to, so that should be worded "pro-death". I'd stick with the "pro-abortion" if I were her. I digress...). Why would she start with "I'm not for abortion...?" The answer to that would be because she thinks (knows) that it is wrong, morally reprehensible, selfish, and murder to condone a person killing their own child. However, she is conveniently able to separate the actual event from the idea by thinking of it as "terminating the pregnancy." That sounds much nicer and cleaner than vaccuuming the baby apart or dissolving it in a saline solution (much like pouring salt on a slug), or birthing the baby in breech position all the way to the base of the head, cutting open the back of the skull, and then sucking the brains out with a vaccuum. WAY better to just "terminate the pregnancy."

Anyways, on the way out the door, she went back to this sentence and said, "I'm just for the woman's right to choose." To which I replied, "Right to choose what?" "An abortion." "Which does what to a baby? Helps it grow? Or ends its life - kills it?" And she said, "Kills it." "So while you're not for killing babies, you are for the woman's right to choose to kill her baby." And she said Yes. My goodness...game over.

One final mention - this post (and the following posts on the subject) are discussing abortion as a topic, and not condemning women who have had abortions. You can't go back and undo something like that, and I'm sure the scars remain, even if they're not visible from the surface. Jesus Christ offers forgiveness for anything you've ever done, no matter how wrong it may be, and He offers it to everyone. Women who have had abortions need prayer and love, the same as woman who are thinking about having one.

In the following posts, I'm going to dissect the other points from our conversation and offer my take on them. Thanks for reading.

See, here's the problem

I wrote a database for a department here at work using Visual Basic as the programming language for the interface, and Microsoft Access as the backend database. I also wrote a design specification and user's manual, and put it all in a binder that sits over in their area. Now some computer "scientist" is claiming that the software wrote (or created) itself and didn't use any programming language, because it wasn't programmed. It just "evolved." Nevermind the fact that there's nothing for it to evolve from, he still says it did. Now I know that I designed and created it, because I did it. A few people in the department know that I did, because they know me and have a relationship with me, and sometimes watched me as I was working on it. Also, others who have never met me know that I did because they've read the user's manual that I wrote, and it has my name in it, my company, etc., and accurately tells how the program operates, and even how and why I built it. Still others know that I created it, because I told them that I did. But there may be some people who are not bright enough to realize that software can't write itself, and therefore what this person is claiming can't be true. There are software programs that are "self-documenting," but they still have to be told to do that. There are even software programs that can write other software programs, to some extent. But they still have to be programmed or given instructions on how to do that.

(this was all a response to a conversation that a woman here at work and I were having about evolution vs. God. She was using the familiar lines about, "why couldn't God have used evolution to create...God still did it, right?")


That is the same thing we face with having evolution taught and forced upon us. You can't get a good grade in class if you put 6000 years on a government school test when it asks how old the earth is (of course, the textbooks don't even agree themselves on the age). Or if they say when was the last ice age, and you say 4000 years instead of however many million. Evolution still doesn't make sense, and trying to tie God to it does no one any favors. It doesn't do God any favors, anymore than it would do me a favor for you to tell everyone, "Well, science says that the program evolved and created itself. Justin still turned the power on to the computer, so he's indirectly responsible." That completely takes the credit away from me, and gives it to nothing, or to the software. It's like I tried to explain to you, if evolution can do it by itself, if it stood a chance of being real and working, then why would you hitch God to it? If it works and can stand up to criticism, then why would you involve God. And if it's a broken theory, and God's really doing the work, then why would you make God drag it along like a broken down car? If God's doing the work, give Him the credit. Don't give it to the broken down car and say, "The car got us here, and God was riding in it." God doesn't need the nonsense. Remember? God is limitless. He can do anything. Man isn't, and can't. We can't even understand God's ways or His being in a full sense. So why would someone trust man's theory on what happened before the earth existed when we weren't there, and don't even know when it was? God was/IS there, and He is God, so I trust Him.

What say you?

Water baby

My kid enjoys being in the bathtub more than anything, it seems. Say it's because the warmth and the whole "being suspended in liquid" thing is like the womb, but I think it's a trait she gets from her dad. Those of you who know me know that I spend about 1 hour a day in the bathtub. Rarely do I take a shower, and sometimes I even start taking a shower and then put the plug in and lay back and let the tub fill up that way. Baths are the way to go, and as it turns out, are a pretty dern effective method of birth control (for me, at least). Without diverting from the subject of the post too much, I'll just say that Jess and I used no form of birth control at all for almost two years, I believe. But I was taking a bath every day in really hot water, and staying in for sometimes upward of 2 hours. Run the water hot, and when it gets cold, drain it and fill the tub back up with hot again. I digress...

Anyways, my girl loves the bath. We don't really use the baby bathtub thing, Jess just gets in and holds her in the water. Allison gets really slow and relaxed, and looks around, and flares her nostrils, and makes faces. She loves it. And her mom and I just laugh and laugh and kiss her and laugh. She's my girl...

Monday the 23rd

Today was the first day in almost two weeks that I have woken up and not had one or both of my in-laws in the house with me. I appreciate all they have done for us, especially my mother-in-law, who stayed with Jess the first week, but it's just not "normal" life when other people are in the house

Jess hadn't been in the car for longer than 30 minutes at a time since she came home from the hospital, so today we decided to take a small family trip. She needed some new bras, so we went to the outlets at Darien. We stopped in Brunswick to eat at Michael's Deli, and then went to Target. Jess went to use the restroom, and when she came out, I had women all around cooing and aww-ing over Allison. We left, and pulled to the far side of the parking lot, where Jessica fed Allison for about 15 minutes. Baby filled her diapers, and Jess changed her in the back seat in the Old Navy parking lot. Kid had it all over her stomach, coming out her diapers. Bought daddy a shirt at Old Navy ($5.99), and then stopped at the back of a Burger King to feed her again. She filled her diapers again, so we tossed the changing pad down on the grass and got her nice and clean.

All in all, we had a WONDERFUL day. It was great to be able to spend some time with my wife and daughter, as the family Mahaffie. A lot can be said for family outings (we're leaving for a two or three day stay at Hilton Head with my side of the family in a couple days), but I NEED the time with the two of them, and most of all, with just my wife.

Hopefully, this week at Hilton Head will allow Jess and I some alone time, as we'll have babysitters galore all wanting to hold Allison. It'll be hard, and we won't be gone long, but I am planning on taking my wife for a nice walk on the beach at sunset, and need to plan something really special for us to do. God is good, and I am so blessed.

Take My Breath Away

whew. I had a baby girl last Saturday. Vitals were 7lb 10oz, 19.75 inches, APGAR score of 9.9 out of 10. That's really good. The kid is INCREDIBLE. must restrain myself...I'd like to give an all-inclusive account of the delivery, laboring, hospital experience, etc. - from this father's point of view.

A bit of pertinent background information - my mother-in-law wasn't able to deliver her first naturally. Her cervix wouldn't dilate like it needed to, even after chemical induction. There, all done.

Cast of characters:
Dr. Fareed Kadum - Was great to accept us as new patients when we were having a lot of trouble getting in at the other offices. We had initially made an appointment with another very capable OB doctor in town, but Jess kept getting sick and dehydrated from all the vomiting, and our appointments was too far out. We needed to try some medicine and didn't want to end up in the ER overnight every two days (we were there twice), so we had to find a doctor to admit us. Kadum's office made us an appointment within one or two days, and he was pretty nice. He'd been practicing in Cartersville, GA for some 20 or 30 years, which sealed the deal for my wife, as her all-time favorite music artist (Butch Walker) is from there, as well. We only saw him once or twice, but he also encouraged questions, and was willing to entertain any questions you could come up with, instead of dismissing them as many docs do.
Cynthia Wallace - midwife at Dr. Kadum's office (St Marys OBGYN). We had our first appointment with her on our third or fourth visit, and saw her for evey other one but the last. She is a delightful person to be around, encourages questions, and likes for the dad to be involved. I didn't know how she'd respond when I asked her if she could show me how to check the cervix for dilation - she responded by giving me 5 or 6 pairs of gloves and a bunch of sterile lube to take home, and talked me through doing it there in the office. The woman is wonderful. I can't say enough good things about her. She is a true asset to the St Marys OBGYN office.
Dr. Steve Kang - New OB in the office. I believe he worked with Dr Kadum for some time before coming here, but this was his first weekend on rotation. The nurses all told us that they didn't know anything about him because they hadn't worked with him yet. He's terribly nice, and did an exceptional job delivering my baby, and then cleaning my wife up/out afterwards. I have much confidence in this man's abilities.
All the nurses at SGHS - I don't remember all the names - Maria Villinauve (sp), Trish Woods, Belinda Smith, and the others who stopped in. They were all different, but a perfect combination. One had been there a long time, and did things her way, another was new and did things strictly by the book, another helped us with making the baby breastfeed, etc. They were wonderful.

So at 40 weeks, my wife was getting pretty upset. She still looked great, didn't have the problems that plague many women, such as the swollen hands and feet (she wore her wedding ring set throughout the pregnancy) or the stiff back, etc. At our 40 week appointment, Cynthia checked and said that her cervix was still only 1cm dilated. She hadn't really had any real contractions at that point, either. By the end of week 41, we were both pulling our hair out. We had our weekly appointment at 40 weeks and 6 days. Dr. Kang (I'll talk about him later - he was wonderful) checked the cervix, and it was still thick and at about 1cm. For those of you who haven't been through the childbirth experience yet, and don't remember high school anatomy class, the cervix is the "opening" to the uterus that the baby has to squeeze through before it can enter the birth canal. Kang said that he would have Jess admitted to the hospital on Friday (not what she wanted to hear), and that they'd give her a drug called Cytotec to "ripen" the cervix. They could do this every four hours. If her cervix responded to the Cytotec, then at some point they'd administer Pitosin and get the contractions really going. If she didn't respond too much, they'd send her home for the weekend to hopefully labor on her own and come back Monday and have the baby either naturally by induction, or via a c-section.

Cytotec was administered at around 8am. By 1pm, her cervix had effaced (thinned out) a great deal, but was still only at 1 cm. Positive change, but not much. We found out later from the night nurse that usually one pill is enough to make the necessary change, and then they begin the Pitosin. Well, they gave her another pill, and started the Pitosin drip, which was increased every 45 minutes or something. After the contractions started, they increased to the point where she was having them about every 30 seconds, and they were hurting her pretty good. I've always called her my "pain baby," because everything hurts her. Anyways, this stuff was hurting her pretty badly.

Doc came back in and checked on her around 11pm. She had dilated to about 1 1/2 cm, but that wasn't very good. He ordered the Epidural. The anesthesiologist showed up around 1am, and was great. I don't remember his name (maybe Woodruff, Wood-something), but I believe he's the same one who did the anesthesia for Jess' sinus and my hernia surgery. Anyhow, he was smooth, and the process took just a few minutes, after which she felt great. She was actually able to go to sleep and labor through the night painlessly. Many times, the epidural can stop the contractions if they had to be induced and weren't coming naturally. But hers continued, and Saturday morning she was at 3 1/2 when Dr. Kang came back in. He told us that we should expect to have the baby sometime on the near side of midnight. A nurse checked after he left, and said she was at a "good" four centimeters.

Some visitors came by, time passed, and my inlaws went to lunch. When they came back, I went to lunch with my parents. This was around 3 o'clock. We went to Ruby Tuesdays, and I got a HUGE salad with pumpernickle croutons in abundance. I sat down at the table and felt my phone vibrating. I looked at the caller ID and it said "Georgia" (my state), so I silenced the call. It vibrated again about 20 seconds later, and I looked at the number this time - it was my mother-in-law. I picked up the phone and she said that Jessica was at 10cm, and the doctor would be in in 1 hour to begin delivery. I finished my salad (albeit with shaky hands) and rushed back to the hospital. Found out that the nurse had went to put the fetal heartbeat monitor under the baby's scalp, and the crown of the head had already presented itself...you could see it between my wife's legs. It was gray and wrinkled, like a little brain.





So doctor Kang showed up and got his scrubs on, and we got down to business. I say "we," because at one point he looked at me and said, "Hey, dad...put on some gloves." "wha...okay." I put on the gloves, and he tells me to interlock my fingers and keep them in front of my chest - basically "keep sterile because you're going to be delivering the baby." Then he tells me to come around to the other side. The first this I do is grab Jess' leg, and Dr. kang says, "No, can't touch her leg. Put on some new gloves." So I reach over and grab a pair off the table the nurses have set up for him with all the necessary instruments for childbirth. Dr. Kang says, "No, can't touch anything on the table. The nurses will give you a new pair." I get a new pair of gloves, and when the baby is ready, he has me catch her head, and then with his hands over mine, guides the baby down and then up to gets her shoulders free. At that point, she slipped right out. Daddy (I refer to myself as "daddy" quite often now, which is kind of weird) caught her bottom end as it came out, and lifted her up. Doctor Kang told me to put her on Jess' chest, so I did, and Jess was - as I hope all new mothers are - compeltely overcome with emotion, and relief, and joy, etc. Here's a pic after they got her cleaned up a bit...

I intentionally left out someone from the "cast of characters" at the beginning, and that is God. He was as involved in this as Dr Kang, or even myself. Looking back at the marvelous way in which things came together, it could have only turned out as smoothly as it did through His leading. God has blessed us with so much, when we don't deserve anything. And now with this baby, we are overwhelmed, in a good way. In the best way. Sometimes it almost takes my breath when I really think about all God has given us and done for us. But that's for another post. For now, suffice it to say that God gets all the praise for everything good in my life.

Faceless

http://www.facelessinternational.com/site/

What initially drew me to the site and made me want to find out more about it is that there are some rock bands that are partnering with this organization and actually "giving back" in so many ways. Groups like Anberlin, The Classic Crime, Showbread and Hundred Year Storm. I've not heard of the last two, but I saw pictures and read commentary from the trip anberlin took to India, and it is moving. Wouldn't it be incredible if other bands (maybe those with more MTV sponsorship) would do this kind of stuff, and set an example for the rest of us? I'm not talking about donating money (although in this world there always seems to be a place for that), but about serving. What if Nickelback or Fall Out Boy or The All American Rejects or Slipknot (haha) would give of their time and energy and heart to go help those in need?

Some sad news

I don't like the news, especially the local news. I don't like it that every headline on the websites, or that every talking point on the "next on the news" thing during commerical breaks is about how many people were shot in Jacksonville, or who burned up when a building caught on fire, or who killed his neighbor. I like good news, although there's not much of that to be seen on the television. As such, I hesitate to put this on my blog because it's about someone dying. Here it is copied from the Foxnews website (not sure how to give credit, but it's from the Associated Press)

CHICAGO — Chicago police say a man died as he tried to shield his four-year-old daughter from an auto allegedly driven by a man under the influence of a controlled substance.

Joseph Richardson was walking his daughter Kaniyah to a McDonald's for burgers late Monday when a car jumped the curb. Police say the 39-year-old Richardson grabbed his daughter just before the car slammed the two into a fence.
Richardson was pronounced dead at the scene. Kaniyah was taken to Comer Children's Hospital in serious condition.
Police say the driver of the car, 32-year-old Angelo Thomas of Chicago, was charged with two felony counts of aggravated DUI. Witnesses say the man was driving erratically before the accident. Richardson, a church musician, was the father of three, two girls and a boy, all under the age of 10.


So there it is. So this guy sacrifices his own life to save his daughter, as any father should. He is a hero, and hopefully he is in heaven now. Pray that the little girl will survive. And pray for his family. But can we do more than that? Who is going to take care of the other girl and boy and Mrs. Richardson? That's where the church comes in. If they have a church family, hopefully they will step up and help the mother raise the children and provide for her needs as well. What about the rest of us as Americans and human beings? Have we any concern? I wish there were some way that I could help them, even though I am of "little means." I could certainly afford to send the family $20 to help them out. "What's $20 gonna do?" If you're asking that question, you're missing the point. If 10,000 of us sent them $20, it could certainly help out. Total of $200,000 (tax free, by the way). It would pay off their home, most likely, provide for funeral bills for the dad and hospital bills for the little girl, and the mom could put some money aside for the kids' college funds.

What can we do? What can we do? I've got $20. Where do I send it? And who will join me?