It’s true what mothers say about forgetting the pain of childbirth. My births are now seven and nine-and-a-half years ago and I have to strain to remember the details. Giving birth is a moment we spend countless hours preparing for. It is the culmination of reading and birthing classes, showers, reordering our lives and homes, […]
How Many Times Can a Woman Split Open?
by on October 25, 2018 7 Comments
Did she catch a glimpse of what was coming as she split open and pushed him with the strength of horses into this world? In that moment, when life and death and blood and air weave themselves together so inextricably, did she have any sense, then, that he was being pulled into the dark? Or […]
Motherhood Un-Wisdom
by on June 7, 2018 12 Comments
My stomach precedes me as I navigate between cramped tables and chairs. I wave to aunts I haven’t seen since the last family wedding and cousins who look impossibly grown up. It couldn’t have been that long ago we were skating in woolen slippers around Oma’s kitchen floor, devouring pans of her impossibly good Rice […]
The Sacrament of Childbirth
by on March 1, 2018 11 Comments
I was shocked by how similar childbirth was to watching my father-in-law die. There is the pacing, the patience, the impatience, the watching for signs of death—or life. The living room transforms into a tunnel where the outside world is fuzzy and out of focus and inside, all senses are heightened. As the time for […]
Pregnant with Heaven
by on November 12, 2017 6 Comments
When I was a child and teenager, preparing for and expecting Jesus’ imminent return was a popular topic in the Christian circles I was in. I understood that I was supposed to eagerly anticipate it, because that was the right thing, but the precursor to Jesus’ return sounded quite terrifying. I saw films imagining torture […]
