parenting in advent: 4th sunday

In the sixth month, the angel Gabriel was sent from God to a town of Galilee called Nazareth, to a virgin betrothed to a man named Joseph, of the house of David, and the virgin’s name was Mary.  And coming to her, he said, “Hail, favored one! The Lord is with you.” But she was greatly troubled at what was said and pondered what sort of greeting this might be. Then the angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God. Behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall name him Jesus.” (Luke 1:26-31)

The announcement of a child’s arrival rarely comes the way we planned.

For some it is an utter shock – unexpected, unplanned, unprepared. For others it is the culmination of years of trying – astonishment, delight, but still surprise.

Sometimes the news is revealed in the quiet of one’s own home, a breathless waiting for the lines to appear on the test. Sometimes it is announced in the sterile light of the doctor’s office. Sometimes it breaks into everyday life with a phone call or a letter that the long-awaited child is here.

But the news is never quite as we expected.

When we are far from parenting’s beginning, we picture how the announcement might look, feel, or sound, and how we will share it with others in turn. But the reality – the years of infertility, or the recurring miscarriages, or the “oops!” baby, or the failed adoption – can be darker shades of grey than we ever imagined. And even when the child is hoped for, longed for, prayed for, we still find ourselves overwhelmed by emotions. Joy. Fear. Love. Anxiety. Wonder. Despair. Hope.

Parents often find themselves younger or older than they would have liked. They don’t have the money or the job or the partner or the resources to raise the child in the way they wanted. They ask, “How can this be?” They wonder how they will bear the news. They grieve the loss of their former life even as they prepare for the future to come.

“The world is never ready for the birth of a child,” wrote one of my favorite poets. It has always been such: parents have never felt fully prepared, completely ready, absolutely certain that they knew what they were getting themselves into.

Zechariah was troubled. Joseph was troubled. Mary was deeply troubled. Each had to lay aside expectations of what a child or a family or a parent should look like. Each had to give themselves entirely to trust in a strange and surprising God. Life was never the same after the news.

Is this Advent’s reminder to us, year after year? That Christmas is never quite what we expected, either. That our plans are not always God’s plans. That we can only prepare so much before giving over to trust in our surprising God, for whom nothing is impossible.

Our hopes and dreams for ourselves, our children, our lives all exist within God’s greater dream of love for us. A love which we will never fully understand or grasp or even imagine. A love which will challenge us and demand from us things we never wanted to give. A love which asks us to trust what we cannot see.

May delivery be easy,

may our child grow and be well.

Let him be happy from time to time

and leap over abysses.

Let his heart have strength to endure

and his mind be awake and reach far.

But not so far

that it sees into the future.

Spare him

that one gift,

0 heavenly powers.

 - from “A Tale Begun” by Wislawa Szymborska

letters to my unborn child, week two

August 16, 2011

Dear Baby,

I was really hoping I wouldn’t have to write you another week of letters. But here we are.

Last night at yoga, my teacher ended class with Exactly The Meditation I Needed To Hear. All about letting go and ceasing to struggle against what you cannot control and being open to grace and did I mention letting go? I tried to be all zen after that. I rocked out to good tunes as I drove home with the windows down on a beautiful summer evening. I scarfed down second dinner while your father told me he “had a good feeling” about you coming that night.

But then you woke me up at 1:45 am and I couldn’t get back to sleep till 3:45 am. Nary a contraction in sight. And well, that kind of sleep should be reserved for mamas with cuddly babies to nurse. Not aching backs and bulky stomachs.

So Oscar’s got nothing on my grouch this morning. Now I know there are many bigger problems in the world to be concerned about. I also know there are many women who would do anything to be in my (swollen, aching) shoes.

But I also know that in my small world, I can think about little else than little you in my big belly. So I (and this hysterical commentary) give myself permission to complain. For a little while, anyway.

Back to work. The only place I seem to be productive these days. Sigh.

Love, Mama

August 17, 2011

Dear Baby,

People love to comment on you. Your size. Your lack of arrival to the outside world. Like any pregnant woman, I have amassed my share of both funny and obnoxious commentary from perfect strangers. But last night may have taken the cake.

I walked up to the cashier to pay for my gas, and she raised her eyebrows at my stomach. “When are you due?” she growled. “Monday,” I replied sweetly. “Can’t come a day too soon.”

“You ever heard of Hypnobirthing?” she asked in a low, gravely tone. My head snapped up from the credit card swiper. Talk about a non sequitur question for a grimy gas station.

“Yeah…” she drawled, raspily. “I wonder if that’s what I did to myself. Cause I was in labor for 36 hours with my daughter. And they wanted to do a C-section. But I refused to sign the papers. They wanted to put me under and I said ‘No way.’ I waited nine months to see this kid come out and I wasn’t gonna miss it.”

“Wow,” I replied, eyebrows raised. “That’s impressive.”

“Yeah, and she was 10 pounds, too. Once they told me at 7 months that she was gonna be big, I just started smoking again. I mean, imagine how big she would have been if I hadn’t stated smoking?! Good thing.”

Hoo boy. From Hypnobirthing to nicotine-regulated birth weight, all in the span of two minutes. I could barely hold in my laughter until I made it back out to the car.

Doctor tells me you’re big, kiddo. Bigger than your brother was, at least. But I think I’ll lay off the Marlboros, if that’s ok with you?

Love, Mama

August 18, 2011

Dear Baby,

Today is the birthday of both of my grandmas. Between those two good Catholic women, they had 13 children. Wouldn’t today be a lovely day for me to birth and you to be born? Lots of good karma floating around us. (Catholic karma, of course. Try to scratch your little newborn head about that one.)

But something tells me both of those fine ladies would smile ruefully and tell me that if they knew one thing about having babies, it was that they never showed up when or how you expected. Darn grandmothery wisdom. Still, I’m banking on their intercession.

Last night we visited with our doula for the last time. This was the visit that was not supposed to happen, because you were supposed to be here already. “Supposed to” is a snarly little turn of phrase, isn’t it? But the evening did pump me up for your arrival. It’s going to be its own snarly affair. But I can’t wait for the hour to come. Because it’s going to bring you with it.

And I am plain sick and tired of picturing you in my head. (Plus I had a crazy dream the other night that you turned out to be twins, and one of you had a full set of teeth. Shudder.) I want to see you in my arms. I want to laugh at your screaming, squished, sweet newborn self. I want to take the first pictures that you will refuse to look at as a teenager, and I will trot them out every birthday and let your siblings laugh at your messy naked self in the bassinet. Then I will remind you it was the Hottest, Most Humid Summer of My Life when I was 100 months pregnant with you, and did you say you wanted to give your sainted mother a foot rub? But I will content myself an eye roll instead. Such is the beauty of motherhood.

Did you know that one of your great-grandmothers once requested a styrofoam to-go cup for the remainder of her luncheon wine at the country club? That’s the kind of chutzpah (well, Irish chutzpah, anyway) that I’m hoping you inherit.

Love, Mama

August 19, 2011

Dear Baby,

Guess what? I’ve changed my tune. I’m actually delighted that you haven’t shown your face yet.

Because late last night a dear, dear friend surprised us with a visit (one that required a 6-hour road trip, no less). And because you’re still cooking, I was able to enjoy a perfectly lovely day with her. The weather was gorgeous; the contractions were few. We shared lots of long chats and laughter and looking ahead to the huge life changes that are to come for both of us. It was a gift you gave to your brother as well, because he got to jolly around with his godmother all day and impress her with his partial memorization of the Nicene Creed. (Latest freakish party trick of which I was unaware.)

So dare I say it – thank you for taking to heart your mama’s mantra of “showing up early is boring.” You come whenever you want to come. Because I can now see the graces of these extra weeks in a whole new light. You are healthy and full-term, and my God, that is no small thing. (Then again, neither are you, but we’re done worrying about your larger size. I never liked smoking anyway.)

See you when you get here.

Love, Mama

August 20, 2011

Dear Baby,

Remember all that nice stuff I said yesterday about you coming on your own time? It doesn’t matter, because I have decided you are NEVER EVER GOING TO COME OUT OF MY BODY.

No, this is not the irrational and cranky conclusion of a woman who woke up at 3:30 am this morning with a hooliganish soccer player doing interpretive dance inside her (and – honest truth here - James Taylor’s “Something In The Way She Moves” inexplicably stuck in her head) and then never.got.back.to.sleep. This is not the hormonal roller coaster of a mother who was counting (yes, she can admit it now) on holding a 3-week old in her arms by this point.

This is an intelligent and rational position, and one that I maintain will enter us into the Guinness Book of World Records as the record-breaking everlasting pregnancy.

I have filled a freezer with one month’s worth of dinners. I have rearranged and cleaned every room in this house. I have washed every possible piece of clothing you could wear in your first three months of life. I have made homemade baby food from the garden. I have even turned to my nemesis the sewing machine and refreshed a whole stack of your brother’s diapers for you. There is nothing left for me to do. And the combined neediness of the toddler and the beagle are slowly draining the dregs of my sanity.

I really wanted to lay off the whine, sweet one. But you’re not making it easy. Off for caffeine…

Love, Mama

August 21, 2011

Dear Baby,

When I was preparing for the piano recitals of my youth, my teacher would always caution me about practicing too much in the week before the big day. “You don’t want to peak too early,” she’d counsel. “You want to still be working on climbing up so you hit the top on recital day – not before.”

The dryer died last night. A sad, overheated, complete and total death. For a home that’s about to add a fourth member – and double its cloth diaper laundry – this was unwelcome news, to say the least. I now fear that nesting has peaked, and we are about to enter into a slow decline of things falling apart. Including, but not limited to: major appliances, my sanity, and this body’s ability to nourish you.

Please, baby, come soon.

Love, Mama

August 22, 2011

Dear Baby,

It’s D-Day. Your due date. Which I know means little to you, and shouldn’t mean much to us either. Especially in a home where we easily drink expired milk (if it passes the sniff test) and happily overlook “best by” dates on yogurt.

But oh. my. sweet. Jesus. in. heaven. and. all. the. saints. I am unbelievably overdue with anticipation to meet you and don’t know how much longer I can wait.

Plus, I waddle now. It’s official. And unattractive.

Also: the whole family is going to have to redo their “baby pool” as of today, because NO ONE THOUGHT YOU WOULD TAKE THIS LONG TO GET HERE.

The oven timer is beeping, little one. The alarm clock is ringing, and the day is calling. Let’s get this show on the road.

Love, Impatience Personified

letters to my unborn child

August 8, 2011

Dear Baby,

A lot of women wax eloquent about the beauty of pregnancy. I do not think they threw up for five months like I did.

But I do think it is a mind-boggling process. And it’s very weird to me that you are growing in the same spot that your brother grew. Two babies, each started out from two tiny cells, grew into two whole human beings inside me. That is “Alien” freaky. (You cannot watch that movie until you’re 18. So take my word for it. On second thought, you will roll your eyes at the wildly outdated special effects. Forget it.)

Sometimes I wonder if you leave each other a parting note, a word of wisdom scribbled on the wall of that dark cave, should anyone else come after you and be baffled by the strange process by which you are shoved out of your warm and lovely home. Or maybe you write a secret letter to your successor like the presidents do. I wouldn’t be surprised if there was a nice mahagony desk in there, given how huge my stomach is now.

Either way, get to graffiti-ing. Your eviction notice is coming soon.

Love, Mama

August 9, 2011

Dear Baby,

This has been the most humid summer on record in your home state. Did you happen to notice that, in your perfectly climate-controlled 98.6 degrees? I wish I could say I will not trot out this fun fact as a future guilt trip for you, but I will. At least the electric company loves me.

Love, Mama

August 10, 2011

Dear Baby,

Your mama slept well last night for the first time in, oh, months. Today would be a really good day for you to arrive. I realize that I have no say at all in the matter, but apparently some chemical in your brain starts the whole process, so let’s fire it up.

Also, in a few months I will start to teach you that the best place to dance is on the kitchen or living room floor. Not on other people’s internal organs.

Your big brother continues to pray for you at every meal. Much more endearing than his other current sibling-related-habit which is to yank up the bottom of my shirt whenever we are out in public and ask to “see the baby!” An action which inevitably leads to a cheeky grin and inquiry of “Mama naked?” Which leads people around us to think he is raised by nudists. See the fun you have to look forward to in this family, post-utero?

Love, Mama

August 11, 2011

Dear Baby,

You didn’t come last night. I even vacuumed the whole house in a burst of nesting energy, hoping that would ensure your arrival. At least the joint is clean now.

Then I realized this morning that you wisely held off to ensure that you and your brother have entirely separate Birthday Weeks. Smart move, if compounding discomfort for moi. Your father and I share a birthday, and this house needed no more of that. Everyone deserves their own cake.

Did I mention that this was Not The Summer to be hugely pregnant, though? Off for ice cream…

Love, Mama

August 12, 2011

Dear Baby,

Still not here yet? Swell. Oh wait, those are my ankles.

Love, Mama

August 13, 2011

Dear Baby,

A short poem for your consideration:

Full moon,

date night.

Why not

come tonight?

Our best-laid plans await to go astray. Consider this your standing invitation. (Although before we would sprint to the hospital, I would be sure to finish the tub of popcorn I’ve been dreaming about since your father suggested one last movie night.)

Love, Mama

August 14, 2011

Dear Baby,

I’m starting to think that you and your older brother may emerge from different ends of the gene pool. He came three weeks early. No one on my side shows up early to ANYTHING. I begin to fear you may be three weeks late. If this is accompanied by the Irish temper as well, heaven help us all.

Then again, I’ve made it this far with both. So I’d still love you to bits.

And just another update: your father has forbade me from making and freezing any more baked goods. Apparently my attempts to deal with the “situation” of zucchini from our garden has led to a “situation” in the downstairs freezer. Nesting has gotten out of control round these parts. Please come soon.

Love, Mama

August 15, 2011

Dear Baby,

Today is the Feast of the Assumption in our Catholic tradition. I am going to assume that you will want to do something as nice for your mother today as JC did for his. I’m not asking to be taken up to heaven, body and soul intact. I just want my body to be a little less…rotund? Uncomfortable. Overripe. That would do wonders for my soul, too.

But lest I be accused of all-cheeky-complaining and no-genuine-gratitude, I will leave you with this one lovely theological thought. This morning I was praying for patience to wait for you to come on your own time. And as I rested my hands on my belly, I noticed for the first time that I could feel you breathe inside me. Now I know there’s no air inside, but your lungs do practice the in-and-out. I could see the gentle movement, feel it rise and fall under my fingertips.

And I realized that you will forever have your own rhythm that does not match my own – not my breath, not my plans, not my expectations. The same Spirit gives life to us both, but at our own pace and time. So keep practicing in there, keep me waiting, keep us both breathing patiently. I’m sure it’s good practice for each of us down the road.

Much love, Mama

you know neither the day nor the hour

Waiting can seem so passive. What is a waiting room for but sitting impatiently, staring at the clock, flipping idly through a magazine, wondering when your turn will come?

And yet we all know that times of waiting quickly fill up with lots of activity.

We wait for Christmas or birthdays to arrive with all the shopping, planning, cooking and decorating that accompany celebrations. We wait for news of a loved one’s safe travels or successful surgery by busying ourselves around the house till the phone rings. We even fill our time waiting for the train/plane/bus to arrive or the light to turn green by checking our phone or flipping through our ipod. Waiting can be active and busy as well.

Waiting for a baby to arrive is no exception. Every day I busy about my life and wonder when the time will come. But I can’t wait passively. There is work to complete. There is a toddler to feed and amuse. There is a house to keep clean. My waiting is full of work and activity.

Living in a constant state of waiting leads my theologian mind to drift to the waiting we all do (or should be doing) as Christians: waiting for Christ to return. Because that is what this whole life is ultimately about, n’est-ce pas? Preparing ourselves to be ready when that final day comes, knowing we will be held accountable for the lives we led and the people we became in the process.

But honestly, who really thinks about Christ’s second coming or the day of judgment all that often? Not many people in the circles I run in. Sure, we have those couple of weeks during Advent when we’re supposed to be preparing for the second coming of Christ at the end of time, not just awaiting the arrival of the sweet babe in the manger. And Lent is supposed to keep us mindful that we are not made for this life, but something more, something coming, something not-yet.

We know this as Christians, right? But rare is the person who actually thinks about the possibility that this very day, Christ could come back again. It almost seems an eye-rolling notion. We mock the sects and the crazies who predict the end of days with such certainty that atheists are left to laugh when tomorrow rolls around.

But spending my days (and restless nights) in a constant state of waiting reminds me that perhaps I should give more thought to this other kind of Waiting. If today were That Day and That Hour, would I be found to be the kind of person I hoped I’d be? How would my life, my work, my flaws and faults be found wanting? And what would it mean to meet face-to-face this person, this God I claim to follow?

Thoughts terrifying enough to send me back to that nest of pillows I call a pregnancy bed. But in small ways, the unknownness, the fear and the wonder of meeting my baby evoke some of the same feelings. What will it be like to meet this new person face-to-face? How will my mothering – with all its flaws and faults, its hopes and dreams – be found wanting? Can I rise to the occasion and be the parent this child will ask me to be?

Waiting is a time of “already-and-not-yet.” We live partly in the future and partly in the present. And it’s hard to live our lives any other way. But if we get too wrapped up in the busyness of preparing, of filling every spare minute so we don’t have time to think about the daunting possibilities of what lies ahead, then we can miss the beauty of what it means to wait.

Namely, that we are always people on-the-way, people who are becoming. That there is always something new before us, something strange and wonderful and unpredictable, something that will challenge us, something that invites us to become more fully the people we are called to be.

So perhaps this is my own call to stay awake, to keep watch amidst the waiting. To try and slow down while my body fuels the hormone-driven need to cook and clean and cajole this whole household (as well as my own heart) into readiness for a new arrival. Because there is no telling what this day, this hour will bring – for any of us. A truth of equal parts delight and terror, but the waiting we’re called to, nonetheless.

will this be the last?

Each day I rise with the same question in mind: will today be The Day?

I go about the day’s routine: work, play, eat, sleep. All the while wondering: will the water break? will the contractions start? When and how and where?

There will be a Last Moment before it all begins, the rush of realization, the final flurry of work and energy and pain and emotion that will bring this child into the world. But I will not know until the moment has passed that it was the last of Before and the first of Next.

And I wonder what the baby on the other side thinks, knows, dreams about what is to come. Blissful innocence? Or perhaps some secret hint that great change lies just ahead?

The last night before you were born, you were
almost complete, your mind busy,
without language, but full of motion
which would never be remembered or know itself.

from “January, Daughter” by Sharon Olds

Some days that transform our lives blindside us completely. Others we await with great anticipation, eager and watchful and wondering at the window.

Birth days are both.

seasons of infertility, years later

“Oh, honey!” She shrieked as she came running towards us, nightgown flapping. “Look at you!”

I smiled, the meager smile of a large pregnant woman, bracing herself to hear the usual round of “you’re due when?!” or “you’re sure it’s not twins?” Be nice, I admonished myself. She’s a sweet neighbor. Let the comments be.

But it was the first decent day we’d had in weeks, cool enough that I could finally take my son for a spin in the stroller without my head spinning from the heat. I just wanted an escape, half an hour to myself in the cool breeze and quiet.

She practically skidded to a halt in front of me. “You look beautiful,” she declared in a breathless tone, the wonder in her voice filling the air like we were in some holy cathedral.

“Oh, honey. Pregnant women are so beautiful. It’s just amazing, you know? Amazing! One time my sister-in-law invited me to go along to the ultrasound, and I just cried and cried – I mean, fingernails! And eyelashes! I was so excited! Everything is growing in there – it’s just incredible. Incredible!”

I smiled back, a wide and genuine smile. How could I have forgotten her story – what I meant to her, welled up in her, reminded her of as I waddled past her front door?

“Thank you,” I said. “You’re so kind – I feel huge these days and uncomfortable in all this heat. But you’re right. It really is a miracle.”

“Oh, honey,” she lifted up her eyes. “It is. I was never able to have children of my own, but I did day care for about 100 years and I got to be pregnant with all those mamas…every time I just cried for joy with them. What a miracle! So beautiful!”

I thought back to other walks past her house, in other seasons and years. When she first referred to her beautiful garden as “therapy.” When she delighted at my first rounding belly. When she laughed that if she had been able to have babies, she’d still be pregnant at 60.

Above that bulging, kicking baby inside me, my heart welled up. Empathy and hormones and reminder of the sheer blessedness of my discomfort.

I thought about what must have been her years of pain and longing, watching those pregnant mothers around her bloom and swell, gathering her day care children into her lap where no baby of her own ever grew. I marveled at her pure joy in my own blessing, the utter lack of resentment or jealousy or bitterness that the gift was never hers.

What grace, what acceptance to come to a place where you can rejoice in others’ journey down a road you were never let to travel.

“Can I touch your belly?” she squeaked, ready to lunge.

I forgot all about my usual aversions to the invasion of personal space. “Of course,” I replied.

She reached out her hands, eyes closed, face glowing with joy in the sunlight. She held my sides with the reverence reserved for a sacred vessel.

“Oh, honey,” she breathed in as she took her hands away. “You are just beautiful.”

No, I thought. You are.

prayers for childbirth: Spirit as intercessor and groaner

We’re big on the Trinity around here. So once I started this series on prayers for childbirth (here and here), I couldn’t neglect the Third Person Thereof.

The Holy Spirit can be tricky, though. So amorphous, so hard to pin down. God’s presence with us, everywhere and always, sure. But many of us wonder at what that means, what that looks like. Flames of fire? Speaking in tongues? Scripture both helps and hinders us to understand.

But then I got to writing my weekly reflection for our diocese on the Sunday readings and Catholic social teaching. And I came across the second reading for this weekend:

Brothers and sisters:
The Spirit comes to the aid of our weakness;
for we do not know how to pray as we ought,
but the Spirit himself intercedes with inexpressible groanings.
And the one who searches hearts
knows what is the intention of the Spirit,
because he intercedes for the holy ones
according to God’s will.

Romans 8:26-27

Of course, I thought. The Spirit as our helper, especially in our weakest moments. The Spirit as our intercessor in our time of need. The Spirit as the one who knows the deep desires of our hearts.

And besides, what speaks to childbirth more than inexpressible groanings?

I was reminded of last Sunday’s second reading from earlier in the Book of Romans. Full of groanings as well:

We know that all creation is groaning in labor pains even until now;
and not only that, but we ourselves,
who have the firstfruits of the Spirit,
we also groan within ourselves
as we wait for adoption, the redemption of our bodies.

Aiding. Groaning. Breathing. Interceding. The rooms where women labor and birth are full of this work. There are doctors and nurses and midwives and doulas who come to our aid. There are friends and family praying for us outside. And there is certainly lots of groaning and breathing, some of it Spirit-filled, some of it pained with demons. But the mix is all swirled together in one sacred space where life passes from one side to the other.

Anyone who’s seen a childbirth scene in the movies or on a medical TV show is familiar with the Lamaze-style breathing that women are always shown panting as they scream (“So unrealistic, all that screaming!” I always hear my mother saying in the back of my mind. “So unhelpful!”) and push out their baby. Then the baby takes in its first breath and picks up where the mother’s scream left off – now a joyful sign that the child is healthy and the lungs are strong. The room heaves a collective sigh of relief. From panting to crying to sighing, the place is full of spirit and breath.

Breathing is indeed an essential part of labor. Whether we practice different techniques for months before the due date or simply rely on our instincts to help hone our breathing through the pain, we can’t birth without focusing on our breath.

Breath is life: pneuma. And breath is Spirit. Starting with the mighty wind that swept across the waters at creation, stories of wind and breath are found throughout Scripture as testimonies to God’s power and presence.

Much meditiative prayer in the Christian tradition (as well as other religions) calls for focusing on one’s breath: to calm the mind and body, to center on God’s holy presence within and without. Centering prayer taught me this in a powerful way. And my own practice of yoga has reminded me how sacred and central breath is: to center us, to strengthen us, to connect us to the Source of Life in the God who first breathed life into our lungs.

Whenever S hears my normal breathing shift to the rhythmic drawing in and pushing out – the technique from all those prenatal yoga classes that has become second nature for getting through the intense Braxton-Hicks contractions of this pregnancy – his eyes light up and he asks with a smile, “yoga breath?” I nod through the breath, and he starts to huff and puff alongside me. A funny but sweet shared breathing, a synchronizing of our systems before he dashes off to build yet another tower of blocks.

So whenever I think of the Holy Spirit, I try to take a moment to breathe deeply. To remember that breath is the very source of my life. To remember that God sustains us minute to minute, body and soul, with the Spirit’s presence.

I’m grateful for an intercessor that groans along with me, that puts into words the prayers that I struggle to utter. I’m grateful for the way the Spirit inspires others to intercede on my behalf. I’m grateful for the strength and reassurance that comes from knowing God is fully present in my time of greatest weakness and pain.

And I’m grateful for that sacred breath that keeps my spirit alive and – God willing – will fill my new baby’s lungs with the first startling, sweet gulp of air. A strong life and Spirit within us both.

Check out the other posts in this series:

• Prayers for Childbirth: God as Midwife
• Prayers for Childbirth: Christ as Companion

 

prayers for childbirth: Christ as companion

As I mentioned in my last post, the prayer that got me through the toughest part of my labor with S was – quite unexpectedly – part of the prayer of the breastplate of St. Patrick.

I say unexpectedly for two reasons. First, it entered the delivery room via a text from a mother, which is a modern marvel in itself (both texting and the fact that my mom has been converted to its ways; only LOL can capture this completely).

Second, it was a prayer that I was familiar with but never felt any particular affinity for. Yes, it was a lovely prayer; yes, it came from my Irish heritage. But I was blown away by how perfectly it spoke to me in that moment of helplessness, of needing to know I was being held by something – by Someone – stronger than myself.

I discovered a beautiful video that the Jesuits created with the complete prayer of St. Patrick’s Breastplate, but below are the words that I made F read and reread to me during my labor. The surroundness of Christ has perhaps never been as real or as strong as it was for me in that moment.

Christ be with me, Christ within me,
Christ behind me, Christ before me,
Christ beside me, Christ to win me,
Christ to comfort and restore me.
Christ beneath me, Christ above me,
Christ in quiet, Christ in danger,
Christ in hearts of all that love me,
Christ in mouth of friend and stranger.

While musing about this prayer a few weeks ago, I happened upon a passage in John’s Gospel that stopped me in my tracks: again, a familiar passage that I had never read so personally or poignantly. Jesus speaks of the pain of childbirth in a real and intimate way. He even compares the laboring woman to his wondering followers – probably to the shock of more than a few men in his company!

But what struck me most about this passage was what it says about Incarnation: that Jesus knew and experienced the fullness of what it means to be human. Somehow, mysteriously, that could have included the experience of birth and the pains of labor. The closeness of God and the knowingness of Christ remain mysteries to us all.

So I read these words today as yet another reminder that Christ is our closest companion, whether we are male or female, whether we labor in delivery rooms or at office desks or under the hot summer sun.

Behind us, before us, beside us, beneath us. We will have pain, but our pain will turn to joy. And no one will take our joy from us.

Jesus knew that they wanted to ask him, so he said to them, ‘Are you discussing among yourselves what I meant when I said, “A little while, and you will no longer see me, and again a little while, and you will see me”?’

Very truly, I tell you, you will weep and mourn, but the world will rejoice; you will have pain, but your pain will turn into joy. When a woman is in labor, she has pain, because her hour has come. But when her child is born, she no longer remembers the anguish because of the joy of having brought a human being into the world.

So you have pain now; but I will see you again, and you hearts will rejoice, and no one will take your joy from you.” (John 16: 19-22)

Check out the other posts in this series:

• Prayers for Childbirth: God as Midwife
• Prayers for Childbirth: Spirit as Intercessor and Groaner

prayers for childbirth: God as midwife

When I was pregnant with S, my newly-graduated-from-theological-school self wanted to compile a journal of prayers for childbirth. Given my fear of the pain and the unknown that lay ahead of me, I was convinced that having prayers to accompany me through labor and birth would keep me calm, centered, cool.

Then the kid showed up three weeks early, and my procrastinating self had barely gotten around to packing the hospital bag, let alone gathering a set of inspiring prayers.

(And believe me, when the triage nurse informed us that it was indeed my water that had broken, and we would indeed be having a baby that night, the words that flew out of my mouth had nothing holy or prayerful about them.)

Thereby paving the beginning of my road to parenthood with good intentions.

But the Spirit works in mysterious ways. So thanks to a playlist of Taize chant on the ipod in the delivery room, I was able to muster some meditative calm (at least in early labor, not that devil of a transition).

Thanks to my mother who texted me the prayer of St. Patrick’s breastplate – which I made F read to me over and over during one of the most difficult parts of labor – I was reminded of Christ’s presence with us, which helped to ease my pain and fear.

And thanks to my girlfriends from grad school who lit candles to hold me up in prayer the whole time I was laboring, I was strengthened by a far-flung circle of strong women whose love helped carry me through.

This time around, I let go of the illusions that I’d once again amass a perfect prayer for the pain of childbirth. But as I’ve been pouring through the Book of Psalms and the Gospels for a project I’m working on, I’ve been jotting down Scripture along the way that speaks to me of the experience of childbirth.

In particular, I’m struck by the imagery of God as midwife. I’ve never been in the care of a midwife, but I was blessed with a wonderful doula for S’s birth and plan to do the same this time around. When I think of our doula’s calming presence, her faith in my strength, her support of both F and me throughout the long day and night, I’m reminded of how God’s love carries us through the dark and painful moments to the bright burst of joy at labor’s end.

So when I came across these two psalms again, I was reminded of the power and presence of thinking of God as midwife, especially when we are in the midst of the overwhelming work and pain of labor.

This is God’s Mothering Spirit: watching us, tending us, keeping us safe, never leaving our side, whispering words of comfort and strength and hope that this, too, shall pass.

“Yet it was you who took me from the womb;
you kept me safe on my mother’s breast.
On you I was cast from my birth,
and since my mother bore me
you have been my God.”
(Ps 22:9-10)

“For you, O Lord, are my hope,
my trust, O Lord, from my youth.
Upon you I have leaned from my birth;
it was you who took me from my mother’s womb.
My praise is continually of you.”
(Ps 71: 5-6)

How beautiful to think of the midwives and doctors and nurses and doulas who attend to women and babies at birth as being God-like in their work. And what a tender image of God as the wise and strong and loving woman who catches each of us upon our birth and places us into our parents’ arms. From one great love to another.

Check out the other posts in this series:

• Prayers for Childbirth: Christ as Companion
• Prayers for Childbirth: Spirit as Intercessor and Groaner

a view of one’s own

Life comes full circle sometimes. This week I’m staying up at the institute where I work for another meeting we’re hosting on vocation. And the apartment where I’m staying is the same place I stayed two summers ago for a week-long writing workshop.

I remember sitting on this same couch, as pregnant and uncomfortable then as I feel now, writing until the wee hours of the morning every night. The week was intense, exhausting, emotional and full of hard work. And I loved every minute. It was tranformational and vocational. It was the first time I realized that I could be a writer. Not necessarily A Writer in the grand, professional sense. But that writing would somehow, mysteriously, intimately, be woven into my vocation. And so I would need to dedicate space and time and hard work to slowly discern where that would lead me.

I wrote a lot about pregnancy that week. After our season of infertility, I was still coming to terms with what it meant that there was a child growing within me, that I was becoming a mother. I wrote a lot about transitions, the strange mix of exhilaration and terror of finding oneself on the brink of life change. Not only was I leaving behind the familiar world of graduate school, but I was also stepping into the strange new world of parenting. My identity was shifting in ways I could only begin to sense.

But mostly I just wrote, a lot. And tore apart my own writing and listened as others tore it apart for me and marveled as I saw myself create something even better out of the pieces. It was a rare blessing to have the chance to be simultaneously challenged and affirmed in something I loved, something important, something that mattered deeply to me.

This week I have looked out over the same lake, the same summer-green trees, the same lazy dragonflies. And during the few quiet moments in the midst of a busy seminar, I have again thought about pregnancy, about transitions, about standing on the edge of my world preparing to transform one more.

All this makes me grateful for the places we can go to do our good thinking, our deep reflecting. The places we create our art and our beauty. The places that inspire us.

Nature often affords us these sacred spaces. Churches and retreat centers do, too. Even corners of our own homes – the kitchen where we create, the workshop where we build, the office where we write. We claim these corners as our own; we find ourselves there. And perhaps, if we pay close attention, we find God there, too.

In a world of constant flux, where we ourselves are always changing (even if imperceptibly), it is a gift to return to these places that change slowly, if at all. They remind us where we have been and where we are heading. They remind us that life has lovely pockets of consistency, and so do we, deep down. They remind us who we are at our core.

Tonight is the last night I will spend alone before this baby arrives. Next time I stay in this same place, the leaves will have changed to autumn reds and golds. There will be two children entrusted to a babysitter back at home. There will be an early morning wake-up to make sure the youngest one still has milk (oh, how I have not missed that chore of maternal separations). My world will once again be transformed from the way it feels and looks today. And as always, I can only begin to imagine what that will bring.

Which makes me all the more grateful for a brief moment, a beautiful place, and a wide view all to myself. For one more night, at least.