Belaboring Birth

“The terrible thing, the almost impossible thing, is to hand over your whole self—all your wishes and precautions—to Christ. But it is far easier than what we are all trying to do instead. For what we are trying to do is to remain what we call “ourselves,” to keep personal happiness as our great aim in life, and yet at the same time be “good.” We are all trying to let our mind and heart go their own way… and hoping, in spite of this, to behave honestly and chastely and humbly. And that is exactly what Christ warned us you could not do.” -“Is Christianity Hard or Easy?”, Mere Christianity, C.S. Lewis

Birth is an unexpectedly messy, notoriously unpredictable, unimaginably painful process. With each rock-hard contraction, the baby asphyxiates as the walls of its heretofore insulated, filtered world come crushing in. The mother focuses on not hyperventilating, grabbing walls or rails or hands, contorting and sometimes screaming or crying. One woman told me it felt like she was being run over by a truck; another that her bottom half was being amputated. And the whole thing, contractions every 2-5 min, can last the entire day, taking so long the baby’s head gets squeezed into a cone shape in the birth canal.

After the placenta is delivered, I put my hand into its warm, bloody sac and think: what a harsh world it must seem at first. So glaringly bright, desert dry, arctic cold. No cushion against the steady pull of gravity. Instead of the steady pulsation of mom’s heartbeat, the harsh cacophony of voices, scissors, suctions. I think about how hard it is for me to live in the new life God offers me every day—how easy it is to stay on the old track, to lapse into self-reliance and nurse old habits.

What does staying in the old world mean for you? For me, it’s the myth of believing I can succumb in little ways—to habits, indulgences, thoughts—without consequence. It’s figuring I can do things on my own. It’s always thinking I’ll be better tomorrow without changing the present. It’s not accounting for the things I feed my mind, spirit, and body. It’s coming to take things for granted.

Inevitably it’s a losing battle. The walls start to close in, and somehow the freedom and truth and betterness of new life is pushed into view. If I only listen, God is speaking it to me all the time, in His word, and through people who love me into beauty and speak to me in truth. And to take that new life—it is a marvelous and somehow effortless thing. Marvelous, effortless. Just like the slippery baby that slides out in a gush of fluid and blood, and in moments opens its crinkly eyes and fills the air with its cries.

Written February 4, 2005 during ob-gyn rotation