Birth is so important because it touches the lives of every single human being on the planet. We are all born, one way or another. It is one of the few universal human experiences, and that alone makes it significant, poignant, something worth remembering, celebrating and embracing.
We have been designed not to consciously remember our first few years, including our births. However, there is a school of thought that says the physical experience of birth is imprinted into our subconscious minds, which goes on to affect our entire lives, and while I am yet to be totally convinced this is true I remain open-minded. Nevertheless, even if the circumstances of our own births hold absolutely no significance to any of us individually, the inescapable reality is this: Birth has a profound effect on at least 50% of the entire world's population -- women. Mothers. Add to that whatever percentage of fathers, siblings, friends and whoever else with a personal connection to the birthing woman may be present for the birth, and you have a lot of people who have just experienced or witnessed one of God's most special "everyday" miracles.
But have they experienced or witnessed a miracle? Or was it one of the most stressful, unpleasant, chaotic, scary, painful, traumatic moments of their lives? Has the mother been left on a joyful high? Is she utterly wrapped up in wonder and amazement at the God-given power of her own body and is she taking total delight in the baby -- her baby -- that is now cradled in her arms? Is there nothing but love and joy around her right now? Does she have no underlying sense of disappointment at what has just happened to her and around her? Have the people she entrusted to take care of her really done their job the way she wanted them to? Is the baby indeed in her loving arms, or has it been rushed off in the gloved hands of strangers to be weighed, measured, washed, bound in plastic name tags, placed in an incubator, or resuscitated? Is she lying on her back with her legs splayed apart and up in the air while a stranger sits in front of her vagina, sewing stitches into it and talking to the other stranger in the room about last weekend's football match? Is she now alone in an unfamiliar room, so drugged she can't think straight, wondering where she is, where her baby is, why she can't sit up, why she feels the need to throw up, what that great big gash across her belly is and what all those tubes attached to her arms and body are? Is she left alone like that for hours? And is she now being shown a strange screaming creature that looks kind of like a human baby for no apparent reason and being told that this is her son or daughter -- whatever that means? These experiences and feelings are real, and tragically, they have happened to a woman near you, whether she will acknowledge it or not (and I don't mean it's happened to every woman who births in hospital, obviously -- but that it's a lot more common than people like to acknowledge).
Birth is so important because it has the potential to be one of the best experiences of a woman's life. She has few other opportunities to be pushed to the very limits of her mental and physical strength, only to discover that she's got more of what it takes than she ever thought before. It can be such an empowering event. But besides that intensely personal aspect of rising to the challenge and conquering it, birth is the grand entrance of her own child into the world -- the child she has been carrying for nine months inside her -- the child that is so inextricably linked to her and with whom she carries a bond with that no other human being will ever replace -- the child she will then go on to nurture and love for a lifetime. This isn't just the end of a pregnancy, and it certainly isn't just another day in her life! It's the beginning of an incredibly profound new journey and beautiful relationship. The nature of the birth experience has an undeniable effect on a mother's ability to fulfill her vital role in that relationship in terms of bonding, breastfeeding establishment, her sense of confidence in her God-given mothering instincts and abilities, and all of the implications those things hold, as well as on her relationships with those she entrusted to be her support people.
When we get married, we spend a lot of time and energy planning our weddings. There are so many details to think about, and we want everything to be perfect on the day. We seldom get everything perfect -- it rains, there's not enough champagne for the toast, whatever. When only one or two things like this occur we can usually overlook them and still enjoy ourselves on the day. Everything else goes beautifully, and we ride off into the sunset to begin a glorious new chapter of our lives together, a chapter that is going to last the rest of our lives.
But imagine if a lot of things go disastrously wrong. In addition to the rain and lack of champagne, imagine that the bride trips over and falls on her walk up the aisle, she gets a big stain on the front of her dress, the photographer doesn't show up, one of the bridal party members gets sick, the best man gives a shocker of a speech and the sound system breaks down. At the end of the day all the couple really has to show for the wedding is the signatures on the certificate. Obviously this isn't going to make for an environment conducive to those happy love hormones that get everything off to a fabulous beginning.
I think the analogy only goes this far, because a wedding is ultimately just a big party, external to our bodies, which can be recovered from relatively easily if it doesn't go well. Birth, on the other hand, is a physical, emotional and spiritual experience that the woman is totally invested in, body, heart, mind and soul. But the point still stands: As big parties and important rites of passage go, everybody acknowledges that weddings are right up there. How much more significant should birth -- the beginning of a person's life on the outside (and remember, we all go through it) -- be?
I mentioned that birth is a spiritual experience. That's because there are very few other times in a woman's life when she looks her own vulnerability squarely in the face and comes to recognise how totally dependent she is on her God to get her through it (and I include the whole pregnancy in this). Birth is such a wonderful opportunity for a woman to meet her Maker in the most intimate way, to know that He is the Great Midwife in whom she can put her complete trust. It has the potential to profoundly deepen her relationship with her heavenly Father. Moreover, through pregnancy, labour and birth God gives women a special insight into His plan of salvation that no man can ever experience in quite the same way, because pregnancy, labour and birth are analogous to our entire spiritual journey. Consider John 16:21.
A woman, when she is in labour, has sorrow because her hour has come; but as soon as she has given birth to the child, she no longer remembers the anguish, for joy that a human being has been born into the world.
This has become one of my favourite scriptures since Cassia was born, and is even written within the context of describing our spiritual journey. Birth has been designed by God to mirror what happens to us spiritually!
This human life isn't all roses. There are many wonderful blessings in it, but there are many trials as well. Some people's trials, for whatever reason, are heavier than others. Pregnancy is like this. For most women, it's an exciting and happy time although it comes with sickness, aches, pains, discomforts and natural anxiety about the welfare of the baby. Some women are lucky enough to sail through the entire pregnancy without a single problem. Others suffer severe nausea and vomiting, pelvic pain that renders them almost immobile, or other conditions that warrant serious medical attention.
We live our human lives knowing that it isn't always going to be this way, and we eagerly anticipate the time when Jesus Christ returns and we are changed from physical, mortal beings to eternal, spirit beings. We don't know exactly when it's going to happen, but we have a reasonable idea, and we spend our lives getting ready for that time. In the brief period immediately before Christ returns, the whole world goes through a stage of intense suffering. We know this time of tribulation is coming, and we can prepare for it as much as possible, but we won't really know what it's like, and how much we'll be affected by it, until it's here. I hope the analogy to labour is obvious. That's exactly how the Bible describes it.
Finally, the period of tribulation ends, Christ arrives and we experience the unparalleled joy of entering His glorious kingdom. We are euphoric and victorious, eternally changed. We count anything we have suffered as loss. This is what birth is meant to be like! This is the overwhelming sense that all that labour wasn't worthy to be compared with the joy we now feel, and the amazing euphoric victorious high which follow (or at least, are supposed to).
I think it's pretty safe to say that God takes His analogies seriously, if the symbolism of Passover, baptism, oil, water, blood, the sacrificial system, the tabernacle/temple accoutrements, etc are anything to go by. So I doubt that birth is any different. Indeed the process of conversion to spirit beings is called being "born again" by Jesus Himself in John 3:3.
And so, with all of that in mind, how should we treat birth, and the birthing woman, remembering Who designed it all and what significance He gives it? With love, tenderness, awe and respect. This is an incredibly special time of life, and deserves to be acknowledged as such. By and large it is not a medical event, and even in those rare cases when it has to be, there is no reason why it still cannot be handled with compassion and dignity. But very few women can say their experience comes even close to this description, and until that changes I will remain a passionate advocate for the importance of birth, and for giving birth in circumstances which are most conducive to achieving that level of love, tenderness, compassion, dignity, awe and respect -- for the woman at the centre of it all and even more for the God who created it.
