One morning shortly after baby was born, while reflecting on my attitude during labor etc, I realized that I gave thanks as labor started…and after baby was born, but not so much DURING labor… I felt I had fallen short of my goal to really live eucharisteo out and make the most of my time spent in labor etc… and to make something unpleasant into a truly positive experience. Then, I thought about Jesus: Looking ahead, Jesus took bread and gave thanks the night before he died, but of all the words He spoke on the cross, giving thanks was not among them. On the cross, He simply accepted the pain while pouring out his heart for others – which is the same thing I did. I take comfort in this. It was truly a blessed experience.
I read a beautiful birth post this week, In the Delivery Room.
Laura writes:
“My body was utterly exhausted. It was broken and ravaged. And it had just done the most incredible thing it ever had to do. After nine months of creating and growing a person from scratch, it birthed a baby – my baby. Through its (my?) weakness and brokenness I recognized more strength in myself than I ever knew was possible. I took part in a miracle. And when the stitches healed and the muscles started tightening again, still, my little, precious boy reminds me of what I accomplished.” (You can read the rest of her story here )
She articulates what I too have felt, what I knew I wanted to experience, back when I was going into labor for the first time. I knew it would be hard, and I knew it would hurt, but for me, giving birth was part of what it is to be a human/woman, and I felt if I never did, or even if I had an epidural such that I didn’t feel the contractions etc, I would be missing out, (on an important experience) that somehow I would have felt that I had not lived my life as fully as I could have. And so with that mentality, I trusted God that whatever happened, He’d give me everything I needed to get through it. And though it was tough, it was also empowering and a raw and beautiful.
“When I stand back and reflect upon my birth story, I don’t see the pain and the blood and the agony. I really do see something beautiful and miraculous. I see love and strength and accomplishment. I see life. This is the story I hope my sister hears from me today. These are the blessings I wish on her as she goes through child birth.”
This is also what I want my best friend to experience.
Thank you so much for saying such lovely things about what I wrote. I am so humbled that my writing could inspire this.
“Giving birth was part of what it is to be a human/woman” – I love this thought, and it echoes so much how I feel about the early stages of being a mother: pregnancy – birth – nursing. I have never been so incredibly amazed by this body that God created as I am during these times, my most primal, my most beautiful (in my opinion, though not necessarily in the eyes of the world).
I do want to say, not as an argument but as an additional perspective, that I do not at all feel like I missed out on anything by having an epidural, or morphine before that. I still felt every contraction and I VIVIDLY remember feeling every push. Part of my blessings on that day was the medical drugs and interventions that I was able to receive. The bible and my experience has taught me that God provides rest to those who seek it through Him, and I fully believe that he provided me some rest during that day using the drugs.
And I wasn’t implying any such thing… I headed into that first birth wanting NO medication, but I ended up getting a shot of demerol to take the edge off. And if I ever had one fo those really long labors like my mom did with me, I’d probably get the epidural just so I could get some rest. 🙂
And that is precisely why I did have an epidural part way through my labour with you–I badly needed the rest. But having rested, I found as it started to wear off, that I could cope with labour again and so I refused offers to have it “topped up.” It was pretty much gone by the time you were born, and I definitely felt that I “gave birth” rather than that “I was delivered.”
But the experience did turn me into a strong advocate for doulas–had I had one when you were born, the earlier stages would have been better managed and gone more quickly, and I might not have needed the epidural.
Of course your brother took it to the other extreme, arriving an hour and twenty minutes after I was admitted to hospital and 3 hours 39 minutes after the first definite contraction. So I guess it averaged out. There was no time for medication, even if I had wanted it. But I still vividly remember the natural high I was on for days afterwards, and the satisfaction at having shared this common experience of women across cultures and down through the ages.