prayers for anxiety in pregnancy

One of the coolest things about blogging is seeing what brings perfect strangers to your writing. On the “dashboard” of this blog, I can see everyday the list of things that people search for (on search engines) which lead them here. And I am completely fascinated by this feature.

For example: what brings more people to my blog than anything else?

Prayers for a baptism anniversary. The post I wrote for S’s 1st anniversary gets hits from search engines nearly every day. I find this to be a hopeful sign, that people really want to celebrate the third moment of sacraments, to keep remembering and living out their their importance. I’m now even more determined to track down good baptism anniversary prayers each year for my kids’ celebrations so that I have more to share.

Every week I get hits related to cloth diapering. Or mothering. Or the Holy Family. Or celebrating liturgical seasons at home. Lots of Goog.les for prayers or poetry on parenting.

But I would never have guessed that a few months ago, I would start getting all sorts of hits for prayers on pregnancy, once I posted this and this. Again, very inspiring; very hopeful. Except that some of these searches were phrased in ways that broke my heart, that found me wondering about the back stories, even sending a quick prayer out to whomever searched and arrived here. Things like:

“prayer for anxious pregnant woman”

“prayers for pregnancy help”

“prayers for unexpected pregnancy”

The growing number of searches I have seen lately on “prayers for anxiety in pregnancy” have reaffirmed for me how hungry, even desperate, women (and perhaps men) can be in the face of pregnancy. It is not always the blissful nine months of joy and expectation that the baby industry paints in pretty pastels.

There are lots of reasons to be anxious and troubled during pregnancy. Medical reasons: previous miscarriages, a history of infertility, underlying health concerns, unexpected prenatal diagnoses, prepartum depression. Financial reasons: an unplanned pregnancy, the loss of a job, the added strain of one more mouth to feed. Emotional reasons: uncertainty about parenthood, fears for its effect on a marriage or other relationship, stress about the responsibilities it brings.

To say nothing of the run-of-the-mill pregnancy worries:

Is my baby healthy?

Am I healthy?

Will my baby come too early?

Can I handle the pain of childbirth?

So when I was reading through the Book of Psalms last week for work, and I came across this familiar one, I suddenly read it with new eyes and realized that Psalm 139 is a perfect prayer for anxiety in pregnancy.

We’ve all heard those reassuring words, the comforting images of God’s hand holding us wherever we go and the beautiful idea that God has known us intimately from our first days in our mother’s womb. (What Post-Vatican II Catholic didn’t grow up singing, “Yahweh, I Know You Are Near?”)

But I had never before reflected on the fact that the psalmist unites the two – comfort in anxiety and the experience of pregnancy – in a way that speaks directly to those who are facing anguish during this time of waiting and worry.

So today I offer this prayer for all of you who stumble onto this page searching for some word of peace in an anxious time. May the God who knows us from the darkness of the womb bring us comfort in the light of day.

O Lord, you have searched me and known me.

You know when I sit down and when I rise up;

you discern my thoughts from far away.

You search out my path and my lying down,

and are acquainted with all my ways.

Even before a word is on my tongue,

O Lord, you know it completely.

You hem me in, behind and before,

and lay your hand upon me.

Such knowledge is too wonderful for me;

it is so high that I cannot attain it.

 

Where can I go from your spirit?

Or where can I flee from your presence?

If I ascend to heaven, you are there;

if I make my bed in Sheol, you are there.

If I take the winds of the morning and settle at the farthest limits of the sea,

even there your hand shall lead me,

and your right hand shall hold me fast.

If I say, ‘Surely the darkness shall cover me, and the light around me become night,’

even the darkness is not dark to you;

the night is as bright as the day,

for darkness is as light to you.

 

For it was you who formed my inward parts;

you knit me together in my mother’s womb.

I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.

Wonderful are your works; that I know very well.

My frame was not hidden from you,

when I was being made in secret,

intricately woven in the depths of the earth.

Your eyes beheld my unformed substance.

In your book were written

all the days that were formed for me,

when none of them as yet existed.

How weighty to me are your thoughts, O God!

How vast is the sum of them!

I try to count them – they are more than the sand;

I come to the end – I am still with you.

 

(Ps 139 1-18)

 

All will be well and all will be well; all manner of things will be well.

- Julian of Norwich