This deeply resonates with me. I had idolized unmedicated birth prior to my firstborn, and I was devastated when I had to transfer from my posh birth center to the hospital for an induction and (eventually) an epidural. Culture places such a heavy emphasis on the method by which we birth, it ends up eclipsing motherhood itself. There's a similar cultural thing going on in weddings vs. marriage - brides often fixate on making the wedding into a spectacular event rather than recognize that it's the marriage that matters. Perhaps this is because we're living in an era of astonishingly low time preference, where culture hyper fixates on the "right now" rather than the "long haul"?
That's an insightful comparison to how we treat weddings, and the fixation on the "now." We definitely live in a culture of immediacy, the conversation around birth is no exception.
Absolutely love love this essay. This is so funny, I was at a Catholic mom’s group yesterday and another woman mentioned she’d had an epidural in an almost ashamed voice! I reassured her that I had too.
Here’s the thing. I hope this doesn’t sound uncharitable, but to me part of something being sacred is that it is hidden. Hence the tabernacle, monstrance, chapel veils. Are we treating our birth as sacred if we are constantly splashing it on Instagram, especially for profit? I don’t know, I’d take my epidural again over that.
Thank you so much for this beautiful piece Rachael.
Our son was stillborn and we knew of his death before the birth which led me to beg Our Lord to send His Mother, just as she was with St Elizabeth. We arrived at the hospital in the early hours of the morning to be greeted by a hug and “I’m Mary, and I’m your midwife”. God truly does turn all things to the good of those who love Him, and each birth offers such a precious gift.
Thank you for this extremely thoughtful piece. I have had a kind of mirror image experience with my births - first birth was a homebirth transfer to hospital which I found deeply traumatising, second was a homebirth which I loved. I can deeply relate to your experience, because whilst my hospital birth wasn't traumatising in any kind of obvious way, my midwives thought it was a really successful birth, I can only say that I felt violated afterwards. It wasn't the medicalisation per se, I was totally happy with my decision to get an epidural (and I still am), it was the way I was treated by my care team. It took me about two years to unpack, and I did initially react with a "all medicalisation is terrible and that's why I hated my birth" attitude, but when I got pregnant again I knew I had to dig deeper if I was gonna manage a second labour. I spent a lot of time learning about birth trauma and realised that the crucial factor is not really what happens (whether it's a hospital birth/homebirth/birth center/c-section), and more how you are treated and cared for. This truth is so often missing from the discourse around birth, which sadly becomes very polarised and competitive in a weird way. So whilst I loved my homebirth and would plan another one if I get pregnant again, I don't think it's the only way to give birth, I have supported friends who have chosen elective c-sections, and for whom a homebirth would have been their worst nightmare.
The other thing that I think needs to be understood in a more nuanced way is that there is some truth to the claim that certain interventions/lack of interventions are more or less optimal from a physiological perspective, but this isn't the only thing that matters. For example, there is growing evidence that babies born via C-section don't benefit from having their microbiome seeded by their mother as they don't pass through the vaginal canal. Pitocin IS a pretty hardcore drug that can have dangerous side effects and cause things like fetal distress. Homebirth often goes well but post partum haemorrhage is real, so is shoulder dystocia, and these can be extremely dangerous. We need to be able to talk about these benefits and risks honestly, and not gloss over them, BUT this needs to be done in a way that acknowledges that what is best for a particular woman is a) her decision; and b) not necessarily the same as the theoretical optimal choice. Real life isn't perfect and often the best available choice might not be totally optimal, and that's ok, it's not failing or less than.
My own guess is that so many of the people who are in the "inner ring" are attempting to make birth safe again, to remove the uncertainty and, yes, danger, that is inherent in childbirth. So they tell women that "if you just do x,y, and z you will have a perfect birth", which is simply not true. This happens with medical birth advocates too. Ofc we want to make it safe, but alongside our best efforts we have to acknowledge that birth is unpredictable, there is always an element of risk, and the outcome is never guaranteed.
I am planning to share my first birth story soon, my daughter is almost 3 and I finally feel in a place where I can write about it in a balanced way. Because I also went into that birth with very naive ideas and a certain amount of idolization for 'natural' birth. One of the things that was healing for me was actually taking more responsibility for my own choices during that birth and not just blaming everything on my care provides. This was a good reminder to remember that 'natural' birth can be traumatising too. I actually hate the phrase natural birth, because nature includes pathology and things like placenta previa...sometimes you absolutely don't want a natural birth because nature can be CRUEL.
That's very true; social media tends to present everything in a glowingly perfect light, and that's why it can be so dangerous. No matter what type of birth you choose, it's painful, messy, and full of uncertainties. There's absolutely no getting around that, and to pretend one type of birth is going to grant you a risk-free, magical experience is just a false promise.
Another reason I can think of for the "inner circle" is that some of it may simply be backlash for earlier generations' insistence on medical interventions during every birth. Women who gave birth naturally were often treated as "outsiders". My oldest is 16, and even as recent as 14 years ago, I was literally ridiculed during a family event for having an unmedicated birth by my aunt and my cousin, who both gave birth via elective C-section. All of our babies turned out healthy, yet I was basically called a backwards neanderthal for my birth choices.
People(particularly women) have a tendency to try to solidify their position in whatever group they find themselves in, even if that involves pushing someone else closer to the outside to make more room for themselves.
Right! Birth just carries an inherent amount of unpredictability. Even a planned c section can have complications, I know multiple women who have had issues with that.
Yeah, don’t get me wrong, there are PLENTY of valid criticisms to be made of the medical birth complex; there is a lot of iatrogenic harm, gaslighting, birth trauma etc caused by the medical establishment. But that isn’t going to be solved or improved by creating an Inner circle of natural birth purists.
Thank you for sharing your experience. What an absolutely beautiful thing for your spiritual director to tell you.
With my third I had high hopes for a home birth, but it became clear to me that was my own idea (and in a way Instagram's), not God's plan for me.
While I have had relatively simple, beautiful, unmedicated births, I have felt what you describe as being kicked out of the "inner circle" because of my inability to breastfeed.
Someone shared this St Francis quote today for his feast day, and it very much relates: "I have done what is mine to do; may Christ show you what is yours."
What a beautiful essay! The ending made me tear up. I also got a copy of Made for This from a good Catholic friend, and, while I liked parts of it, I still avoid mentioning to that particular friend that I chose to have an epidural for my birth. I agree that some people, online and off, tend to equal the sacrifice of motherhood to the sacrifice of birth, without considering that birth is never a walk in the park, regardless of how it happens.
I understand that feeling of avoidance. I hope for a day when we can share our birth choices with confidence and acceptance of one another, even in differences!
This reminded me of St. Paul, paraphrasing, women’s salvation will come through childbirth. At first, as a young woman this creeped me out, as did most of what he wrote about women, even as a faithful, orthodox Catholic. (The Lord’s deep personal love for the women around Him, His appreciation for their faithfulness, His concern for their personal stories was my deep consolation.) But I realize now, and I think some trad men don’t, that this wasn’t a sort of condemnation, but a recognition of an experience of redemptive suffering — both immediate and lifelong— that every woman in her motherhood will experience, and no man will ever, ever come close to.
And St. Paul didn’t distinguish between how your baby arrived, certainly! When every child ever conceived in history is a person, a woman, stepping into the breach of Eternity for another human being, the epitome of Our Lord’s definition of no greater love.
That verse is hard to interpret. I think it’s from 1 or 2nd Timothy…which Timothy was at Ephesus. The main pagan god there was Artemis which is usually viewed as a fertility goddess although I think there is strong scholarship to suggest she was a goddess of virginity. After all, childbirth was extremely risky in the ancient world. A lot of women would make vows of virginity to avoid dying in childbirth. I think that could’ve be going on in Ephesus. I’ve read interpretations of that verse indicating it’s not about spiritual salvation, it’s legit just being preserved through childbirth aka not dying. Paul is like yo ladies you don’t have to eschew marriage because of fear of dying in childbirth. Of course, he says elsewhere he wishes everyone was single like him. Sheesh, poor Paul, he’s easy to misinterpret.
Whew, well *that* puts a different spin on things! Yes, he *is* easy to misinterpret…and the trouble is when too many men with domination on their minds, across the Christianity spectrum, who aren’t looking to Our Lord in the Gospels for their hints, took their misinterps and ran with them!
Yup yup yup. I grew up in a faith tradition where honestly we studied Paul more than Jesus 🙄 These 2 verses from the Apostle Peter stood out to me months ago and I legit cannot get them out of my head, especially whenever someone is referencing Paul and I think misapplying whatever his point was. Peter mentions Paul and says there are hard things to understand from him and stupid people are harming themselves and others because of their misunderstanding. True in the 1st century and true now!!! “Also, regard the patience of our Lord as salvation, just as our dear brother Paul has written to you according to the wisdom given to him. He speaks about these things in all his letters. There are some things hard to understand in them. The untaught and unstable will twist them to their own destruction, as they also do with the rest of the Scriptures.” 2 Peter 3:15-16 CSB
Thank you for writing this. I had the goal of a natural birth with my first, but was totally unprepared for what that meant in the context of a 36 hour stint of labour. I definitely felt disillusioned by what I had been told by natural birth advocates and ended up transferring to the hospital and getting an epidural. Praise the Lord for that relief! I am sad that at the time I saw it as a failure on my part but I know now that is far from true. The experience has made me way less strict in my beliefs around birth and I have way less fear around it in general.
My wife delivered our four babies at home, attended by midwives and me. The important part was that she felt cared for. You clearly didn't get that at the center across the bay.
Like many things, the human element of connection is extremely important to well being during labor and delivery. You can get that in a hospital sometimes. It depends on who's on staff and how busy and/or jaded they are.
Thank you for being interested in women’s stories and experiences… it is truly Christ-like. I’m all for orthodoxy and traditional devotion, but modern trad guys certainly spook me.
I'm 66, past the season of childbearing, but it was moving to read your piece. I especially liked the distinction between mother's experiencing a sacrificial death at the time of childbirth, versus a mother's experience of an ongoing dying with Christ across a lifetime. Thank you. And is there any possibility of posting your thesis to be read by others? I would be very interested in learning further from you. BTW, I am Director of a maternity shelter, which may account for my interest in the spirituality of motherhood across ones life.
Excellent, excellent piece. I childishly swallowed all the discourse about natural birth when pregnant with my first, considering a homebirth and writing out a detailed, multi-page birth plan which I never was able to share with my provider before delivering via emergency induction at 37w1d. That labor experience, which was followed by a very bad hemorrhage, solidified my resolve to never, ever deliver anyplace except in a hospital, as it's where I felt the safest and most relaxed.
I have a blood condition which means I can't have an epidural, but besides that my nine births have covered a spectrum between "natural" and whatever the opposite of that is. IV meds, no meds, Full induction, low pitocin, no pitocin, water broken for me, water broke on its own, walking, lying down, pushing on my own, being told when to push...All were profound, all were joyful, all showed me something about the heart of Jesus and His sacrifice for us. My last birth was a C-section at 33 weeks, which I chose in order to (hopefully) not distress my baby any more than his necessarily early delivery would on its own. No one told me they'd lay my arms out like that before they put me under. The memory of being placed like that is still so moving, I couldn't help but cry when you mentioned it in your essay.
Thank you for sharing. I'm moved reading your experiences and your fundamental conclusion: "All were profound, all were joyful, all showed me something about the heart of Jesus and His sacrifice for us."
The birth plan for my oldest was two whole pages of text. My last birth, via c-section, was “I want to take home the placenta.” Social media had me believing I had to write a book.
Thank you for this thoughtful and honest reflection. As someone who’s had two emergency C-sections, your words really hit home. I didn’t plan for my births to go that way—in fact, I still don't know the finer details. They happened in my most vulnerable moments and I'm still processing what feels like the ultimate failure. I'd built up an idea of how the births would be, natural and spiritual, and they couldn't have been further from that reality.
I deeply appreciate how you acknowledge the pressure to live up to certain "ideal" birth experiences and how that can make those of us who had interventions feel like we’re on the outside. I'm still conditioned to think that the sacredness of birth is impacted on how it happens—even though I know it lies in the life we bring into the world and the sacrifices we continue to make as mothers.
Thank you for validating that every birth story is unique and beautiful in its own way. This piece was a reminder that our strength isn’t measured by how we give birth, but by the love and care we pour into our children every day.
Thank you. Yes. Full disclosure: I am Lutheran, with deep sympathies for Roman Catholicism.
As for my pregnancy: Oh, how I wanted All The Natural, All The Perfect, All How God Intended…and then my kindly young Catholic Napro physician (do they let middle-schoolers be doctors now? 😂) removed the fibroids from my uterus that were preventing pregnancy, and when I conceived 3 months later, he told me I needed to deliver via planned c-section, since that surgical history greatly increased my chance of uterine rupture. And my local, crunchy, very VBAC-friendly OB agreed with him, and I cried and felt like a failure for the next 6 months…and part of me still does. And my sweet boy was born, and I got a few minutes to snuggle before the NICU team decided they wanted him to be breathing a little better so they took him, and my husband went along, and I laid in the recovery room, unable to move my legs, texting a few precious pictures, and crying, and thinking about all the Not Godly things he was experiencing, and feeling like a failure. And then he spent nine days in NICU and when insurance kicked me out of the hospital my husband and I moved to the Ronald McDonald House and I cried and felt like a failure. And we finally came home, and nursing was, bar none, the most painful experience of my life, and I am a cancer survivor and an amputee. So the three of us laid in bed together and I tried to feed my baby while I squeezed my husband’s hand so hard I was afraid I would break it, and I cried and felt like a failure. And our pediatrician told us everything was fine and so I kept laying in bed crying every time he ate, and then finally a ped dentist told us that it looked like a pretty minor tongue tie, but if it was affecting ME that badly, then we needed to address it - like I mattered too.
All of this is to say, I guess, that I don’t know. There’s a lot of godless western medicine that I don’t trust, and that I don’t think is necessarily patient-centered, but neither were the crunchy Christians there to tell me that God was here, in this really hard part too, when in retrospect, that is what I so desperately needed to hear.
And since then I’ve miscarried twice, and my failure to “be fruitful and multiply” weighs heavy on my heart, and my kiddo is so amazing and also I feel so awkward at homeschool co-op because Am I Really A Christian If I Only Have One Child?
So anyway…thanks for speaking to those of us who aren’t perfect. Your words are a blessing to me.
Love this article even though in some ways I’m like a crunchy success story. I’ve had 3 natural childbirths, I got an epidural with number 4 because after 3 naturals I’m over it hahaha been there done that! Plus my labors go so fast now. 5-6 hours tops. Even my longest birth was 12/13 hours so I truly can’t fathom going 24hrs+ in labor. All of mine were in the hospital and I have to say in defense of medical professionals I really wasn’t pressured into anything in the hospital setting or treated poorly. It breaks my heart when women are treated so disrespectfully when they are so vulnerable. Mommy wars are soooo old, why can’t women just be nice to one another ugh 😩
This deeply resonates with me. I had idolized unmedicated birth prior to my firstborn, and I was devastated when I had to transfer from my posh birth center to the hospital for an induction and (eventually) an epidural. Culture places such a heavy emphasis on the method by which we birth, it ends up eclipsing motherhood itself. There's a similar cultural thing going on in weddings vs. marriage - brides often fixate on making the wedding into a spectacular event rather than recognize that it's the marriage that matters. Perhaps this is because we're living in an era of astonishingly low time preference, where culture hyper fixates on the "right now" rather than the "long haul"?
That's an insightful comparison to how we treat weddings, and the fixation on the "now." We definitely live in a culture of immediacy, the conversation around birth is no exception.
Wow the connection between the focus on birth and the focus on the wedding day is so insightful and I hadn’t considered it at all.
Absolutely love love this essay. This is so funny, I was at a Catholic mom’s group yesterday and another woman mentioned she’d had an epidural in an almost ashamed voice! I reassured her that I had too.
Here’s the thing. I hope this doesn’t sound uncharitable, but to me part of something being sacred is that it is hidden. Hence the tabernacle, monstrance, chapel veils. Are we treating our birth as sacred if we are constantly splashing it on Instagram, especially for profit? I don’t know, I’d take my epidural again over that.
Say it louder for the people in the back!
Thank you so much for this beautiful piece Rachael.
Our son was stillborn and we knew of his death before the birth which led me to beg Our Lord to send His Mother, just as she was with St Elizabeth. We arrived at the hospital in the early hours of the morning to be greeted by a hug and “I’m Mary, and I’m your midwife”. God truly does turn all things to the good of those who love Him, and each birth offers such a precious gift.
I am so sorry for your loss--thank you for sharing this beautiful story. What a gift indeed.
IDK, I'd say whatever medical advances that have lowered mortality rates during giving birth were probably worth it.
Thank you for this extremely thoughtful piece. I have had a kind of mirror image experience with my births - first birth was a homebirth transfer to hospital which I found deeply traumatising, second was a homebirth which I loved. I can deeply relate to your experience, because whilst my hospital birth wasn't traumatising in any kind of obvious way, my midwives thought it was a really successful birth, I can only say that I felt violated afterwards. It wasn't the medicalisation per se, I was totally happy with my decision to get an epidural (and I still am), it was the way I was treated by my care team. It took me about two years to unpack, and I did initially react with a "all medicalisation is terrible and that's why I hated my birth" attitude, but when I got pregnant again I knew I had to dig deeper if I was gonna manage a second labour. I spent a lot of time learning about birth trauma and realised that the crucial factor is not really what happens (whether it's a hospital birth/homebirth/birth center/c-section), and more how you are treated and cared for. This truth is so often missing from the discourse around birth, which sadly becomes very polarised and competitive in a weird way. So whilst I loved my homebirth and would plan another one if I get pregnant again, I don't think it's the only way to give birth, I have supported friends who have chosen elective c-sections, and for whom a homebirth would have been their worst nightmare.
The other thing that I think needs to be understood in a more nuanced way is that there is some truth to the claim that certain interventions/lack of interventions are more or less optimal from a physiological perspective, but this isn't the only thing that matters. For example, there is growing evidence that babies born via C-section don't benefit from having their microbiome seeded by their mother as they don't pass through the vaginal canal. Pitocin IS a pretty hardcore drug that can have dangerous side effects and cause things like fetal distress. Homebirth often goes well but post partum haemorrhage is real, so is shoulder dystocia, and these can be extremely dangerous. We need to be able to talk about these benefits and risks honestly, and not gloss over them, BUT this needs to be done in a way that acknowledges that what is best for a particular woman is a) her decision; and b) not necessarily the same as the theoretical optimal choice. Real life isn't perfect and often the best available choice might not be totally optimal, and that's ok, it's not failing or less than.
My own guess is that so many of the people who are in the "inner ring" are attempting to make birth safe again, to remove the uncertainty and, yes, danger, that is inherent in childbirth. So they tell women that "if you just do x,y, and z you will have a perfect birth", which is simply not true. This happens with medical birth advocates too. Ofc we want to make it safe, but alongside our best efforts we have to acknowledge that birth is unpredictable, there is always an element of risk, and the outcome is never guaranteed.
I am planning to share my first birth story soon, my daughter is almost 3 and I finally feel in a place where I can write about it in a balanced way. Because I also went into that birth with very naive ideas and a certain amount of idolization for 'natural' birth. One of the things that was healing for me was actually taking more responsibility for my own choices during that birth and not just blaming everything on my care provides. This was a good reminder to remember that 'natural' birth can be traumatising too. I actually hate the phrase natural birth, because nature includes pathology and things like placenta previa...sometimes you absolutely don't want a natural birth because nature can be CRUEL.
That's very true; social media tends to present everything in a glowingly perfect light, and that's why it can be so dangerous. No matter what type of birth you choose, it's painful, messy, and full of uncertainties. There's absolutely no getting around that, and to pretend one type of birth is going to grant you a risk-free, magical experience is just a false promise.
Another reason I can think of for the "inner circle" is that some of it may simply be backlash for earlier generations' insistence on medical interventions during every birth. Women who gave birth naturally were often treated as "outsiders". My oldest is 16, and even as recent as 14 years ago, I was literally ridiculed during a family event for having an unmedicated birth by my aunt and my cousin, who both gave birth via elective C-section. All of our babies turned out healthy, yet I was basically called a backwards neanderthal for my birth choices.
People(particularly women) have a tendency to try to solidify their position in whatever group they find themselves in, even if that involves pushing someone else closer to the outside to make more room for themselves.
Right! Birth just carries an inherent amount of unpredictability. Even a planned c section can have complications, I know multiple women who have had issues with that.
Yeah, don’t get me wrong, there are PLENTY of valid criticisms to be made of the medical birth complex; there is a lot of iatrogenic harm, gaslighting, birth trauma etc caused by the medical establishment. But that isn’t going to be solved or improved by creating an Inner circle of natural birth purists.
Thank you for sharing your experience. What an absolutely beautiful thing for your spiritual director to tell you.
With my third I had high hopes for a home birth, but it became clear to me that was my own idea (and in a way Instagram's), not God's plan for me.
While I have had relatively simple, beautiful, unmedicated births, I have felt what you describe as being kicked out of the "inner circle" because of my inability to breastfeed.
Someone shared this St Francis quote today for his feast day, and it very much relates: "I have done what is mine to do; may Christ show you what is yours."
What a beautiful essay! The ending made me tear up. I also got a copy of Made for This from a good Catholic friend, and, while I liked parts of it, I still avoid mentioning to that particular friend that I chose to have an epidural for my birth. I agree that some people, online and off, tend to equal the sacrifice of motherhood to the sacrifice of birth, without considering that birth is never a walk in the park, regardless of how it happens.
I understand that feeling of avoidance. I hope for a day when we can share our birth choices with confidence and acceptance of one another, even in differences!
This reminded me of St. Paul, paraphrasing, women’s salvation will come through childbirth. At first, as a young woman this creeped me out, as did most of what he wrote about women, even as a faithful, orthodox Catholic. (The Lord’s deep personal love for the women around Him, His appreciation for their faithfulness, His concern for their personal stories was my deep consolation.) But I realize now, and I think some trad men don’t, that this wasn’t a sort of condemnation, but a recognition of an experience of redemptive suffering — both immediate and lifelong— that every woman in her motherhood will experience, and no man will ever, ever come close to.
And St. Paul didn’t distinguish between how your baby arrived, certainly! When every child ever conceived in history is a person, a woman, stepping into the breach of Eternity for another human being, the epitome of Our Lord’s definition of no greater love.
That verse is hard to interpret. I think it’s from 1 or 2nd Timothy…which Timothy was at Ephesus. The main pagan god there was Artemis which is usually viewed as a fertility goddess although I think there is strong scholarship to suggest she was a goddess of virginity. After all, childbirth was extremely risky in the ancient world. A lot of women would make vows of virginity to avoid dying in childbirth. I think that could’ve be going on in Ephesus. I’ve read interpretations of that verse indicating it’s not about spiritual salvation, it’s legit just being preserved through childbirth aka not dying. Paul is like yo ladies you don’t have to eschew marriage because of fear of dying in childbirth. Of course, he says elsewhere he wishes everyone was single like him. Sheesh, poor Paul, he’s easy to misinterpret.
“Like”
Whew, well *that* puts a different spin on things! Yes, he *is* easy to misinterpret…and the trouble is when too many men with domination on their minds, across the Christianity spectrum, who aren’t looking to Our Lord in the Gospels for their hints, took their misinterps and ran with them!
Yup yup yup. I grew up in a faith tradition where honestly we studied Paul more than Jesus 🙄 These 2 verses from the Apostle Peter stood out to me months ago and I legit cannot get them out of my head, especially whenever someone is referencing Paul and I think misapplying whatever his point was. Peter mentions Paul and says there are hard things to understand from him and stupid people are harming themselves and others because of their misunderstanding. True in the 1st century and true now!!! “Also, regard the patience of our Lord as salvation, just as our dear brother Paul has written to you according to the wisdom given to him. He speaks about these things in all his letters. There are some things hard to understand in them. The untaught and unstable will twist them to their own destruction, as they also do with the rest of the Scriptures.” 2 Peter 3:15-16 CSB
Thank you for writing this. I had the goal of a natural birth with my first, but was totally unprepared for what that meant in the context of a 36 hour stint of labour. I definitely felt disillusioned by what I had been told by natural birth advocates and ended up transferring to the hospital and getting an epidural. Praise the Lord for that relief! I am sad that at the time I saw it as a failure on my part but I know now that is far from true. The experience has made me way less strict in my beliefs around birth and I have way less fear around it in general.
My wife delivered our four babies at home, attended by midwives and me. The important part was that she felt cared for. You clearly didn't get that at the center across the bay.
Like many things, the human element of connection is extremely important to well being during labor and delivery. You can get that in a hospital sometimes. It depends on who's on staff and how busy and/or jaded they are.
Congratulations on being a mother!
Courageous writing for our time. As a father of three and grandfather of six (all boys!), this was wonderfully insightful for me. Thank you!
Thank you for being interested in women’s stories and experiences… it is truly Christ-like. I’m all for orthodoxy and traditional devotion, but modern trad guys certainly spook me.
I'm 66, past the season of childbearing, but it was moving to read your piece. I especially liked the distinction between mother's experiencing a sacrificial death at the time of childbirth, versus a mother's experience of an ongoing dying with Christ across a lifetime. Thank you. And is there any possibility of posting your thesis to be read by others? I would be very interested in learning further from you. BTW, I am Director of a maternity shelter, which may account for my interest in the spirituality of motherhood across ones life.
Excellent, excellent piece. I childishly swallowed all the discourse about natural birth when pregnant with my first, considering a homebirth and writing out a detailed, multi-page birth plan which I never was able to share with my provider before delivering via emergency induction at 37w1d. That labor experience, which was followed by a very bad hemorrhage, solidified my resolve to never, ever deliver anyplace except in a hospital, as it's where I felt the safest and most relaxed.
I have a blood condition which means I can't have an epidural, but besides that my nine births have covered a spectrum between "natural" and whatever the opposite of that is. IV meds, no meds, Full induction, low pitocin, no pitocin, water broken for me, water broke on its own, walking, lying down, pushing on my own, being told when to push...All were profound, all were joyful, all showed me something about the heart of Jesus and His sacrifice for us. My last birth was a C-section at 33 weeks, which I chose in order to (hopefully) not distress my baby any more than his necessarily early delivery would on its own. No one told me they'd lay my arms out like that before they put me under. The memory of being placed like that is still so moving, I couldn't help but cry when you mentioned it in your essay.
Thank you for sharing. I'm moved reading your experiences and your fundamental conclusion: "All were profound, all were joyful, all showed me something about the heart of Jesus and His sacrifice for us."
The birth plan for my oldest was two whole pages of text. My last birth, via c-section, was “I want to take home the placenta.” Social media had me believing I had to write a book.
Thank you for this thoughtful and honest reflection. As someone who’s had two emergency C-sections, your words really hit home. I didn’t plan for my births to go that way—in fact, I still don't know the finer details. They happened in my most vulnerable moments and I'm still processing what feels like the ultimate failure. I'd built up an idea of how the births would be, natural and spiritual, and they couldn't have been further from that reality.
I deeply appreciate how you acknowledge the pressure to live up to certain "ideal" birth experiences and how that can make those of us who had interventions feel like we’re on the outside. I'm still conditioned to think that the sacredness of birth is impacted on how it happens—even though I know it lies in the life we bring into the world and the sacrifices we continue to make as mothers.
Thank you for validating that every birth story is unique and beautiful in its own way. This piece was a reminder that our strength isn’t measured by how we give birth, but by the love and care we pour into our children every day.
Thank you. Yes. Full disclosure: I am Lutheran, with deep sympathies for Roman Catholicism.
As for my pregnancy: Oh, how I wanted All The Natural, All The Perfect, All How God Intended…and then my kindly young Catholic Napro physician (do they let middle-schoolers be doctors now? 😂) removed the fibroids from my uterus that were preventing pregnancy, and when I conceived 3 months later, he told me I needed to deliver via planned c-section, since that surgical history greatly increased my chance of uterine rupture. And my local, crunchy, very VBAC-friendly OB agreed with him, and I cried and felt like a failure for the next 6 months…and part of me still does. And my sweet boy was born, and I got a few minutes to snuggle before the NICU team decided they wanted him to be breathing a little better so they took him, and my husband went along, and I laid in the recovery room, unable to move my legs, texting a few precious pictures, and crying, and thinking about all the Not Godly things he was experiencing, and feeling like a failure. And then he spent nine days in NICU and when insurance kicked me out of the hospital my husband and I moved to the Ronald McDonald House and I cried and felt like a failure. And we finally came home, and nursing was, bar none, the most painful experience of my life, and I am a cancer survivor and an amputee. So the three of us laid in bed together and I tried to feed my baby while I squeezed my husband’s hand so hard I was afraid I would break it, and I cried and felt like a failure. And our pediatrician told us everything was fine and so I kept laying in bed crying every time he ate, and then finally a ped dentist told us that it looked like a pretty minor tongue tie, but if it was affecting ME that badly, then we needed to address it - like I mattered too.
All of this is to say, I guess, that I don’t know. There’s a lot of godless western medicine that I don’t trust, and that I don’t think is necessarily patient-centered, but neither were the crunchy Christians there to tell me that God was here, in this really hard part too, when in retrospect, that is what I so desperately needed to hear.
And since then I’ve miscarried twice, and my failure to “be fruitful and multiply” weighs heavy on my heart, and my kiddo is so amazing and also I feel so awkward at homeschool co-op because Am I Really A Christian If I Only Have One Child?
So anyway…thanks for speaking to those of us who aren’t perfect. Your words are a blessing to me.
Love this article even though in some ways I’m like a crunchy success story. I’ve had 3 natural childbirths, I got an epidural with number 4 because after 3 naturals I’m over it hahaha been there done that! Plus my labors go so fast now. 5-6 hours tops. Even my longest birth was 12/13 hours so I truly can’t fathom going 24hrs+ in labor. All of mine were in the hospital and I have to say in defense of medical professionals I really wasn’t pressured into anything in the hospital setting or treated poorly. It breaks my heart when women are treated so disrespectfully when they are so vulnerable. Mommy wars are soooo old, why can’t women just be nice to one another ugh 😩