I want to snatch these 5 minutes to type this out, otherwise it will speed by, and I won’t record this.

I was at a birth 2 nights back, and I was having so many thoughts as she was laboring, and I was with her. We were in the darkened kitchen/livingroom with the half-sized Christmas tree with it’s lovely lights winking in the wee hours of the night.

Her husband and little baby were sleeping in the other room. She was hands and knees going through the intensity, quietly moaning, rocking. I was quiet, rubbing down her back.

It was a rich time in the mostly-dark night when I have to stand in one place and think about one thing. First I began by asking myself, Why am I even here? Her body can do this. She doesn’t need me here. It’s a beautifully-designed hormonal, physical process that her body and her baby will just do together.

And my mind wandered to those ancient midwives, Hebrews, Shiphrah and Puah, and how they saved boy babies lives by not murdering them at birth as Pharoah had commanded. They had been there. They had stood in the nights by quietly laboring women.

And it dawned on me, gradually, after I left that birth …. More than a body is giving birth. More than a hormonal process is happening. A woman’s soul is passing through an amazing experience. She’s having a trial, too, a hardship, even one that brings great joy. And it’s wonderful to have someone near you in the birthing, the working out that only your body can do and experience.

I can’t experience her pain, but I have expereinced the same event and it’s pain that was for me. And I can stand near and comfort her soul and body as she passes through what is happening to her.

… Those were some of my lessons from this beautiful night. Understanding that birth IS a hormonal process (involuntary) is essential. But it’s spiritual, too, in many ways. It’s more than a woman’s body giving birth. .