Thoughts about Childbirth

I've been thinking about childbirth recently. Not too surprising really, given that hopefully I'll be doing this in about 7 weeks, depending on when Tiny decides he's had enough and wants to come out and play. I've got the skeleton of a 'birthplan', so that everyone does what I want them to do while I'm busy screaming. And we've gone and inspected the hospital, which looked sane and sanitized and an easy place to be while everything is happening. We only own a car seat for this poor child so far (which is sad given that we don't have a car), but slowly I am getting my act together and hopefully in the next two weeks will buy many infant related products.

There are two major things that have been buzzing around my mind in all of this, though. The first is the great category Luther gave to us. The feminists all hate Luther for his bombastic sexist remarks, which are often quite funny (I think they're funny - feminists do not find them amusing at all). I can't quote it verbatim (our boxes still haven't turned up with all our stuff in them), but one of my favourite quotes from Luther is found in Luther on Women: A Sourcebook By Susan C. Karant-Nunn (which I strongly recommend), and goes something like this:

Childbirth is a good work, to be embraced by all women as a privilege and a God-given task, which would could even cause men to want to be women so that they too could do this good thing. Will you die in childbirth? So, good for you, pass on over. You have died doing a good and worthy task.

You can see why feminists don't like this! It's typical, cringeworthy, over the top Luther at his most passionate. I am quite attracted to it though because it isn't being painfully careful and allows you to see behind what he is saying to the larger categories, which are quite useful I think.

The category I most appreciate is that Luther has moved childbirth from a demonstration that women are under the curse and are somehow cursed in and by childbirth (the medieval Roman Catholic view), to childbirth being one of those good works which God has prepared for us in advance to do (Ephesians 2). In other words, redemption really does roll back the curse in a genuine way for Christians this side of heaven.
It doesn't completely remove the curse and leave us 'bearing children, while contemplating God calmly and peacefully' as Luther argues would have happened prior to the Fall. The pain and the 'toil' of it is still very much present. But the context is so completely different. Far from being merely the frustrating, meaningless pain of futility tied up with the curse, when we know Christ we move to understanding that all we do for others is part of these good things that God has planned for us to do. Whether it is changing nappies (Luther again - referring to men here), doing great and wonderful things, doing menial tasks or doing something as difficult as childbirth - it is caught up in this extraordinary category of things God plans for us to do and gives us the opportunity to do as an expression of love. We don't need to be sentimental in the doing of them, but we are given a rock-solid reason based on who we know God to be, which doesn't remove the pain, but which dissolves the futility of the situation. Going through childbirth isn't just a necessary evil to be endured and detested, but something one does for someone else, with the blessing of God, knowing that this is part of the work he has given us to do.

I'm grateful to Luther for pulling things together like this. We tend not to speak publically about childbirth, so you kind of have to rattle around and do your own thinking about it and I think that can be a bit tricky sometimes. It's good to have some sturdy categories in which to rest your thinking with something like this.

The second thing I've been thinking about is death. Our baby has now got about 90% chance of surviving even at this 'early' stage if the birth was to take place now (which is quite amazing I think). I have an excellent chance of survival. In fact, no medical professional has even mentioned to me that I might die. I know it worries Mark, but I don't think most people really think about it.

Yet 100 years ago, and more so 200 years ago, it would have been a strong possibility. There is a service in the Anglican Prayerbook of thanks to God for mercy in childbirth. Bach came back from a months-long gig to find that his wife and child were dead and buried (and because of communication problems back then he found out when walked in the door). Just two reminders of childbirth going horribly, tragically wrong.
I'd be quite surprised if I died, and I'm not really worried about it, though of course it is possible; I worry more about Tiny dying. But this is the nexus of life and death: here where life is made possible (because Tiny cannot live indefinitely in my womb: trust me - there simply isn't room for a lot more growing to happen), but made possible only in the face of potential death.

I've heard that many people faced with the whole experience of childbirth are amazed and start to wonder whether there is something more to life than the merely material. It makes a lot of sense to think that because we recognise that we can't really control life. And it makes a lot of sense, not just in our day, where the focus is only on life, but in the past where death and life dwelt together during childbirth and the outcome was by no means certain.

I hope I remember somewhere in the chaos of it all, of this new mercy of a lowered death rate that God has showered on the human race, particularly if it applies to Tiny and to me and we are both alive at the end of it. I hope I remember it because it is an extraordinary blessing not to be contemplating and actively preparing for the possible death of myself or my baby at this point, but smiling to myself at the thought of a new life. And running around buying cot sheets and doing other trivial things.

Because life is always a blessing from God: none of us can make it happen. None of us can so much as add an extra hour to our lives. Life is a gift God gives and it is good for us to appreciate it and give thanks.