We are scheduled for an 11 pm induction.
The house is dark and quiet, and somehow feels more hollow with my daughter sleeping at her grandmother’s instead of her little bed. My belly aches with weight as I shift positions on the couch. The baby stretches, too, and a tiny ripple runs through the skin stretched taught. This will be my last night feeling him inside of me.
I didn’t want to be induced. This wasn’t my choice. I had spent months reading about and preparing for a natural birth, gathering electric tealights and lavender oil, my birth ball and playlist of calming music. I wanted to be fully present to this experience of motherhood, to avoid the epidural, to move through labor, to avoid even the slightest possibility of a C-section, especially dangerous for my high-risk blood-clotting condition. I had my own plans, but the doctor thought otherwise. After two weeks of prodromal labor, labor that progressed in fits and spurts, putting us on edge to dash to the hospital at any moment, like runners filled with tension at the start, ready to spring into the race at any moment. We were already fatigued from the intention of holding this constant readiness. I had my own plans, but as the doctor informed us, it was time to get this baby out.
Lord, take this cup from me, I pray. I ache to birth this baby without Pitocin, without the unbearable pain I’d heard medicinally-strengthened contractions could bring. Doubt swirls in my chest. My husband’s nickname for me is““delicate flower.” I believe my body was created to give birth, but I think little of my own ability to withstand the extra intensity of medically-induced contractions.
Not as I will, but as you will, I surrender.
Outside of Holy Thursday Mass, I adore Jesus who looks at me out of a small, white circle. I lost my family in the procession, this mass of people seeking to be close to him. We huddle together under a white tent, large, but not large enough to contain us, with only candlelight and song to fill the darkness of the night around us. It is several months later, my son safely birthed and sleeping soundly at home. My chest dampens by way of reminder as full breasts leak through the fabric of my dress. I should go home, I think. Home to my husband and my children who slumber silently on.
I can’t pull myself away. I want to sit with Jesus in the darkness, in the anticipation of his pain. It brings to the surface memories of my own dark night of waiting, of willingly submitting to the pain that brings new life. I remember the intensity of the contractions, the relief of my husband’s mere touch, the searing burn of pain as my son emerged, and the utter joy and awe as they placed love upon my chest.
In this moment too, this Holy Thursday passion, we know the joy that comes at the end of the darkness. The victory is sure. Still, we sit with Jesus as he prays. We keep watch as he anticipates. We suffer alongside his suffering. We bring our suffering to the God who suffers with us, who knows too well the sting of injustice and loneliness, the poverty of rejection and revulsion. We all have our moments of darkness and sometimes, as in the birth of my son, it is easy to see the dawn of Easter on the horizon. During others, the night seems longer. The darkness is blacker. Dawn seems an impossibility. On those nights, we light candles and keep watch with Jesus in the garden. And as we wait for the dawn, we take comfort in the stars, the tiny signs that darkness never fully reigns. Even from untravellable distances, light touches us, breaks up the darkness, and reminds us to hope.