Sweat trickled down her face and collected along her hairline. The back of her neck was damp, and her onyx braid hung heavy. She slid a hand under the plait and lifted it to let in a bit of cool air. A rivulet of perspiration ran down her chest and into the crevice between her engorged breasts where tiny bits of hay clung to her skin, catching on her shift, making her feel itchy and irritable. Her shift was twisted about her middle from her restless movements. No position was comfortable. She gripped the edge of the feeding trough with her other hand, bracing herself. Nothing had prepared her for the searing pain that flooded her body. She knew the pain of the cramping that often had accompanied her monthly bleed, but this pain was a travail unlike anything she had experienced.
How she had hoped this wouldn’t happen. How she had hoped they’d be back home for the baby’s arrival. Did all the walking bring it on? Or being jostled as she took breaks from walking and rode on the back of the friendly old ass? She just wanted to be home. Home. Not in some unfamiliar room with unfamiliar people at hand.
The benevolent beast had been brought inside to shelter from the cold and was settled in an out-of-way corner. She felt its watchful, doleful eyes. Was there commiseration in them? And how had the proverbial stubbornness of an ass been replaced with the meekness displayed by this patient creature? She knew it was a common practice to bring the livestock into one’s dwelling for warmth, but this too added to that sense of the unfamiliar as she owned no livestock at home. The donkey itself though was a quiet comfort, and a rush of homesickness washed over her as she pined for tiny Miriam and the somewhat aloof Thomas. If only there had been some small corner left in the town inn. Then at least she would have had the quiet of concealment. But there had been no room left. She saw the compassion that shone in the eyes of the innkeeper and was glad that he knew of this place.
Another swell of pain overtook her. With both hands, she clutched the trough, resting her forehead on its rough ledge. Instinctually she knew she should relax and go with the ebb and flow of pain, but everything in her pushed to resist it. She breathed. And then, a gush of waters opened from within her, coursed down the inside of her legs, and soaked the homespun cloth that had been laid out beneath her.
Birthing was messy. She who preferred things kempt had to succumb to the thorough disorderliness of bringing a baby into the world. Her body was doing things she didn’t know it was capable of and to do those things, it seemed to need to sweat, secrete, soil, and even smell sour in ways that left her feeling exposed somehow. There was a raw grittiness to birthing that laid bare her reserves. When the mussed cloth beneath her was eased out from under her knees and replaced with a fresh one, she laid on her side, one hand still holding onto the trough’s edge. She heard a quiet murmur of voices and knew a midwife was present. She also heard the rustle of straw as the ass shifted and settled. The reprieve in her pains turned her further into herself.
Why was it that to give way to something new required pain? Involved this level of travail? Needed this amount of hard work? It took her to a level of discomfort that she didn’t think possible. Was this really necessary? Wasn’t there some other way to birth something new? Someone new? She knew the story of old that ended with women bearing the brunt of a curiosity that didn’t end well and paying for it through painful childbirth, but really? Still paying for that? Maybe there was no real reason. Maybe the effort required for birthing simply was a part of the process. Maybe needing to work hard at something kept one tethered to the very thing one was working hard at. Did the labouring keep both the labourer and the thing laboured upon grounded?
Despite everything in her wishing to forego the labouring, it needed to be done. There was no other way to bring forth this child. To keep the baby within her would snuff out its life. When the time for birthing has come, the labouring was a necessary passageway to delivering something new. To thwart the labour would be to miss the newly born. This too would pass, she knew, but it wouldn’t pass without going through it.
A small movement near the end of the feed trough drew her gaze. Her bundle had been set there earlier and loosened to retrieve her things. Now, what to her wondering eye did appear but the diminutive face of sweet Miriam the mouse. What on earth? She remembered seeing the small stash of seeds in the back of Miriam’s hollow by the door. Had Miriam too been preparing for a journey? When would she have smuggled herself into the pack? And what amount of mouse droppings littered the bottom of the bundle? Well, no matter… The mouse sat back and looked on with wise, companionable eyes. She weakly stretched a hand of welcome and gratefulness across the strewn straw towards the critter.
Another wave of pain rose and rose and she shifted back into a squatting position, holding on fiercely to the trough’s edge. She felt the intense pressure of bone against her bones but on the inside of her. It was an odd sensation. And then came the unstoppable urge to bear down.
She knew the time had come.
***************************************************************************************************************
As I worked to capture a sense of labouring in the above watercolour, my heart and mind were with a dear friend who was in the midst of a labouring that had nothing to do with giving birth to a baby. Not all labouring ends with cuddling an infant – neither literally nor metaphorically. Let’s be gentle with ourselves and one another in this season, lean into love, and reach for that tender response that creates a space where the broken-hearted are nurtured and where even the least of these might dare to venture. In doing so, may we birth an earthy goodness into our worlds that subverts the raucous rhetoric that seems to prevail at large.
* The inspiration for some of my thoughts on birthing came from Herbert Driscoll’s book “Portrait of a Woman”. Driscoll writes, “When the waters of her womb had gone, the child had no choice but to prepare for birth. To remain in this tiny world of flesh, even if that were possible, would now be fatal. So it is with all of us on our journey. In jobs, careers, relationships, there comes a time when the waters of fullness pass. We feel a dryness, an emptiness, a realization that we must act or we will taste something of death. We must decide to set about being born toward the next stage of our existence.”