In celebration and memory of
giving birth to my daughter Colette
June 29, 1986
“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.” (John 16: 20-21)
I read this Gospel message on
Sunday. It was part of our lectionary reading for Trinity Sunday and I knew
that this wasn’t true as I read it. Women do remember and I remember actually
writing in my journal in the wee hours of the morning shortly after delivering
my beautiful baby girl in less than ½ hour that the pain was unbearable. I
wrote about wanting to get off the table and calling the whole thing off. I wrote
about wanting pain killers but was told I was too far along. I pleaded that
even though I took the Lamaz class it was OK with me to use drugs. I wrote in
permanent ink about the pain so I would not forget in case I decided to do this
again. Afterwards I couldn’t help thinking that each person I met went through
some process like this in being born. Each mother I met I blessed for this
shared pain.
You see I came into the
hospital 9 centimeters dilated and went immediately into transistion. My
husband was disappointed we didn’t get to practice all the breathing exercises
we had practiced for weeks. I was freaked out that the class hadn’t really
cover “transistion” for fear we might accidentally go there in class.
So I am here to say that
women do remember the pain and we remember the joy too. They are part of the
same imbilical chord. They are twins. And equally important theologically, joy
does not cancel out pain. It comes forth in spite of the pain. It comes in and
through the pain. Telling people that you won’t remember the pain is not only
false; ask any mother who has had natural childbirth, it reinforces a theology
that diminishes the power and purpose of pain.
In the middle of the birthing
ordeal when all I wanted to do was scream and have this over, the ever kind and
patient nurse said something I will always remember. She said, “Honey, you can
scream as much as you want but the pain you are experiencing is the baby moving
down the birth canal. Imagine this movement like a wave rolling to the shore.
Ride it, honey, ride it in.” This helpful advice changed everything. I rode
those waves in until the head emerged and she came out with her own screams of
terror and joy. The pain was my own body contracting and opening, pushing out
new life. The pain itself was good and redeeming.
So how do the facts of how
real women give birth challenge a theology of pain forgotten in favor of a
greater joy? I think it suggests that joy comes not from forgetting but rather
moving through. There is joy in the movement not just the outcome. Don’t get me
wrong. There is a joy like heaven on earth to hold your baby girl in your arms
but there is also a joy in knowing, in experiencing your own body and spirit
making the way possible. One does not diminish or cancel the other.
The good news, then, is that
the process of giving birth is painful and beautiful because it hurts to expand
our boundaries, to allow a new being to come forth. It should never be
forgotten. Remembering this makes other painful events and times bearable
because it reminds us that this is how new life comes to us.
