Made for This. Mary Haseltine
and spiritual one. For the mother at the center, it’s never “just” a birth. Birthing our babies isn’t like a run to the store or a chore to check off a list. It isn’t something we’re meant to just grit our teeth and get through in order to have a baby. It is innately personal, involving our entire bodies and selves; it is emotionally charged and ingrains itself deeply. Birth is at once miraculous and earthly, wild and gentle, strong and vulnerable, normal and weird, natural and supernatural, bloody and beautiful. In the end, it is the way that God intentionally designed to transform us into mothers. Birth matters deeply to us as women.
The experience of birth stays with a woman forever — not necessarily every specific detail surrounding the birth, but on a deeper, much more intuitive level — how she felt, how she was made to feel, how she was treated, how well-prepared she was for the complicated emotions surrounding the arrival of this baby, how it changed her and gave her confidence in her motherhood — or perhaps the exact opposite. Each birth leaves an imprint on a woman’s body, mind, heart, and soul. She is changed. We are complete persons, so what affects one aspect of our person affects everything else — physically, emotionally, spiritually, mentally. We have the opportunity to choose to invite the One who planned it all in the first place to saturate every part with grace before, during, and after birth.
In this book we will talk about why the act of birth is so powerful, why it is such a deep and important moment in a woman’s (and man’s!) life, and what God might have to do with it all. We’ll learn why having a deeper understanding of our births is not “over-spiritualizing” but recognizing the truth of who we are, body and soul, and who God is. We’ll share examples of how we as women can cooperate with the way that God designed birth to transform our bodies, minds, hearts, and souls. We’ll hear from real women who have experienced profound grace through their births, and those who have allowed their faith to integrate their pregnancy, births, and motherhood deeply. We’ll walk through some of the options you will likely have so that you can make the best decisions in your own unique circumstances. In opening ourselves to God’s plan for each one of us, we open ourselves to the possibility of a beautiful, transformative, happy, healthy, and, yes, even holy birth for ourselves and our babies.
God’s Plan for Your Birth
Whether a woman is Catholic, Christian, or of no religion at all, she is physically the same as any other woman, and the baby certainly seems to come out the same way regardless! The physical movements and techniques, physiological aids, medical choices, possibly everything on the outside may look similar.
So what might be different when we speak of birth from a perspective of faith?
Drawing from her faith, a woman can seek to honor the design and plan of the Creator, in whatever way that means in her unique circumstances. We have a God who desires to be intimately involved in each of our lives and who has a beautiful and unique plan for each of his daughters. He loves each one of us infinitely and eternally. That same God, so in love with each one of us, wants to be invited to play a part in the most important and transforming moments of our lives, including our experience of birth.
The mystery of love and the rich tradition of the faith can penetrate your unique birth and transform it into something holy. When our lives and souls are transformed through baptism, every aspect of our lives becomes a conduit for real and living grace. It seems entirely appropriate to expect that something so profound and intimate as the birthing process can be infused with that grace. These moments so intimately tied to our God-given vocations as wives and mothers can especially be part of God’s plan to work in our lives and draw us closer to him. The same God who has concerned himself with the number of hairs on your head and who has searched your being and knows when you sit and stand is certainly concerned with you as you birth one of his sons or daughters.1 He doesn’t walk us through conception and pregnancy only to leave us at the door of the delivery room. Nothing is outside his reach and dominion and care. We can see his hand in all of it and ask him to be intimately involved in our pregnancies and births.
There is a temptation to compartmentalize the parts of our lives that don’t feel or look holy (because sometimes our understanding of holy has been distorted) from our relationship with God. Some people may feel that God wants nothing to do with that “birthy stuff.” Some may cling to the idea that birth is purely a physical or medical process — get in, get it over with, and get on with more important things. Perhaps some feel pressured by the erroneous belief that a holy or Christ-centered birth should look or feel a certain way, and that turns them off. But none of these are truly valid reasons to write off the reality that God can be — wants to be — a part of your unique birth.
We have a choice to make as women approaching our births. We can enter into it as something to get through, knuckles clenched and eyes squeezed shut, wanting it to be over as quickly as possible, seeing it as a flawed and dreadful design for meeting our babies. Or we can enter into it with hearts a bit more open, viewing it as the incredibly intelligent design of God himself, the way that he, our loving Father, mindfully and intentionally chose to build a family and transform his daughters into mothers.
I believe God wants to come with us into each pregnancy and birth and do something powerful. Whether it’s your first baby or your twelfth, no matter what kind of pregnancy and birth he calls you to have, no matter your circumstances, his grace is present and available in extraordinary amounts. He wants to transform you and draw you deeper into his mystery of love right now, with this pregnancy and birth, in a way that speaks to your unique heart. God gives us the choice to work with his grace and answer the invitation to see our pregnancies and births from an eternal perspective. It is the vehicle through which the two becoming one is met face to face. It is here where woman participates in the creative power of God and where father and mother meet the new person that they, with God, have called into being.
Every birth looks different because we are all different. God calls each mother to have a unique pregnancy and birth. So, the idea of integrating our faith into birth is not meant to outline a specific formula for a holy birth. It is not meant to tell you the correct way to give birth or to pass off as doctrine what can be changeable — each woman’s circumstance is unique. While we will talk about some, this book is not meant to go into every specific choice you will need to make when it comes to the birth of your baby, and it is outside the scope of this book to go into the risks and benefits of every single option in your pregnancy and birth. There are several great books that already do that, many noted in Appendix D. It is highly recommended that you pick up one of those books to complement this one, and consider taking a quality birth class, especially if this is your first baby. A good birth class will help you know the landscape of birth practices in your area and the providers that are better at giving compassionate, dignified, and evidence-based care, and will help you enter more fully and intentionally into your birth.
What this book is meant to do is talk about how we can allow God to transform our pregnancies and births into something beautiful, redemptive, and truly supernatural. It is meant to help women understand the design of their bodies and birth as well as some of the choices available so that they can best respect their own dignity, that of their babies, and the design of God’s plan when it comes to birth. It is meant to help women access the tremendous redemptive and transformative power of birth. It is meant to give tools to the mother who wants to approach her birth in the light of her faith. We do nothing in a vacuum. The light of our faith has the power to transform everything we do — even, and in an especially profound way, birth.
Birth is an incredibly sensitive, personal, and emotionally charged topic, which only serves to highlight the point that it is important, it matters, and it affects us deeply. Because of this, there is no room for judging other women when it comes to birth choices. There is room only for listening, encouraging, offering valuable information when appropriate, and providing support, respect for others’ situations, and genuine love. While we, of course, need to judge our own situations, be informed, and make the best choices we can in our own circumstances, it is not our responsibility to do that for others. My humble prayer is that as you read this book, defenses are laid down. I pray that you will be open to the idea that perhaps birth is such a sensitive topic precisely because