more prayers for pregnancy

I’ve come across a few more beautiful prayers for pregnancy that I wanted to share. Two of them come from Judaism, and I found them here on Beliefnet, of all places.

The first comes from a poem entitled “World of the Womb” by Tikva Frymer-Kensky:

My eye cannot see you.

My will cannot control you.

But I feel your presence,

and I note your being

and I wish you all blessings,

and I love you.

Beautiful.

The second likewise comes from a poem, “Birthing Blessings” by Merle Feld:

Help me to protect and nurture and guide

this new, yet undiscovered soul.

And let me not curse the child or myself

when we both prove to be only human.

Those last two lines made me want to laugh and cry at the same time. I think they apply not only to birthing, but to the whole of parenting (at least as much as I know of it).

And the final one I can’t believe I forgot. It’s a blessing by John O’Donohue for a mother-to-be, and a group of my friends from grad school prayed it for me and S (in utero) during a weekend retreat we made together. The blessing of those wonderful friends and strong women gave me peace during the anxious moments of the final months of that pregnancy.

Here are a few excerpts from the blessing, but you can find the whole thing in his collection called To Bless The Space Between Us:

Nothing could have prepared

Your heart to open like this.

From beyond the skies and the stars

This echo arrived inside you

And started to pulse with life.

…

Once it began, you were no longer your own.

A new, more courageous you, offering itself

In a new way to a presence you can sense

But you have not seen or known.

It has made you feel alone

In a way you never knew before;

Everyone else sees only from the outside

What you feel and feed

With every fiber of your being.

…

You know your life has changed forever,

For in all the days and years to come,

Distance will never be able to cut you off

From the one you now carry

For nine months under your heart.