Before Thomas was born, I gulped down birth
stories online. I probably read two or three stories a day during my entire
third trimester (that makes, what, around 200 birth stories? That sounds a
little low compared to how much reading I logged in!). I’d always hoped to
contribute to the pool for other anticipation-filled (or anxiety-filled)
pregnant gals to gulp down. But now that it’s “my turn”, I don’t have the same
type of story to share. I didn’t keep track of how long I was in labor or what
I did when or when I transitioned or what the heck was going on
medically-speaking when Thomas went into distress. So how useful is a birth
story without all the fun facts? What I can say is this. . .
I
believe that giving birth, whether it happens through the peace of natural
means, or through the terror of an emergency, or in anticipating exhilaration, or
crying in pain and clutching to sanity, or on an operating table through whatever
circumstances, is Sacred. Birth is sacred. It is Heavenly Father using one of
His children to give the chance of life to another of His children. There is
more Love in it all than we can comprehend. There is more Holiness than we know
what to do with. There is more of that which seems banal happening alongside
that which is Holy than we can sift apart.
I
don’t think we are meant to. It’s meant to be that way: the gross and the hard
and the ugly and the frightening and the funny all mixed in around the soaring
mystery of experiencing God’s love through birth. I wish I could spell out each
way that His love was made manifest – his love for my son, his love for my
husband, his love for me, our love towards Him, and more. But the whole point
I’m trying to make is that I can’t
describe it, because I myself don’t fully grasp what I’m describing. It’s just
a vague, overflowing feeling – one that stands independent of the circumstances
of birth. It’s a feeling born of a surrendering of the reins to that which
surrounds us in birth. The need for control unto the peace, the terror, or the
waiting. The mother-love unto the need-love of a naked, squalling infant. The
desire for things to be easy unto the willingness to sacrifice, only to realize
that, as C.S. Lewis says, everything that when we sacrifice our all, in
sincerity, it is returned to us hundredfold. And yet knowing that does not
diminish the initial sacrifice.
I
suppose this element of surrender is what we are learning to do all our lives.
What makes birth so powerful is the way we experience the “battles fought out
in the silent chambers of the soul” out in the open, in one (relatively) swift wrench.
So
while I can’t accurately record numbers, times, circumstances, or even be able
to label my birth experience as natural or not, I can say that as I gave birth
to my son, I crossed the bridge to the world of effort, surrender, and divine
grace that is motherhood - not just from the fact of giving birth, but from the
experience of it.
What’s really cool is that birth is a
microcosm of motherhood itself. Each day since then has held reincarnations of
those same lessons, on different scales. In so many aspects of motherhood, I go through
the cycle again, putting forth all my effort in taking care of my baby or
dealing with my trials, then surrendering. The “Who” of surrendering is so
important: I can surrender to the trials or the emotions, or I can surrender my
feelings, my needs, myself into the Lord’s hands. And through it all, I can
rely on divine grace.
And
what’s really, really cool?
Motherhood itself a microcosm of God’s plan for ALL of His children! He wants
us all, mothers or not, women, men, and children alike, to learn to lean on
Him, to put forth effort to follow Christ, to sacrifice so that it changes us,
to be blessed by Him hundredfold, to have joy. As a new mom, I am blessed to be
at the beginning of a road where I have these lessons and experiences in store
for me. That is my Joy to share today, that "He advocateth the cause of the children of men" (Moroni 7:28) and gives each of us the circumstances to experience work, growth, sacrifice, and joy. While I sometimes resent the first three of those, without them we would not have true joy. Just as without this experiencing those things through giving birth, I literally would not have THIS joy:
"A woman when she is in travail hath sorrow, because her hour is come: but as soon as she is delivered of the child, she remembereth no more the anguish, for joy that a man is born into the world." - John 16:21
