This Sunday morning before Violet's first birthday, I find myself reminiscing about her labor and the church service I spent breathing my way through contractions.
My first two labors were about as easy as labors come. With Shepherd and Lydia, I labored at home in relative relaxation for a long while, but then I went to the hospital and had them each in an hour and forty minutes. I expected a similar experience with my third. Violet had other plans.
At four in the afternoon on Saturday, I went into labor. I had seen this show before, so I knew exactly when it had really started. I happily labored through the evening, excited to meet my baby girl sometime the next day. At 3:30 in the morning, I was certain it was time to go to the hospital. Upon my arrival, the nurses got me settled into a labor and delivery room.
The hour and forty minute mark came, and then it went. I had no baby to show for all my laboring. By 8:30, contractions had slowed to about two an hour, and I was at my wit’s end. After a completely sleepless night, I demanded that someone take the I.V. out of my arm and let me go home because I was starving and I was irritated. No one argued, and I was eating a fast-food breakfast while BJ drove me home within the hour.
Being Sunday morning, BJ rushed around and prepared for church as soon as we got home. Sleepless night or not, he was determined to deliver his sermon. I sadly resigned myself to sitting at home and timing the contractions that were once again coming close together because women aren’t supposed to go to church while they are in labor, right?
But while looking at the crumpled sheets of my unmade bed, the discarded stop watch that I was so tired of monitoring, and my adorable children who my mother was preparing for church, I knew I couldn’t face the morning alone. So five minutes before the organ would start playing the opening song, I threw on maternity jeans I was now stretching to their limit, a top I had worn through three pregnancies, and a little make-up because I am a Texan and we don’t leave the house without makeup on even if we’re in labor, and I headed to the church.
I don’t remember what songs were sung that morning, and I don’t remember what my husband’s sermon was about. I do remember the surprised faces and the good-natured joking of my church family as the laboring preacher’s wife arrived, and I remember pausing mid-song every ten minutes or so as a contraction passed. I also remember that each song, each prayer, each scripture read seemed a little more significant as I anticipated the new life I would soon bring to our church.
Many people think of church as a break from life, a place the weak escape to because they can’t handle real life. But if you look around, you will likely find that life is actually happening at church. I couldn’t postpone my labor, but I could bring my labor to church with me. Ideally, church isn’t merely an escape from everything, but rather a place where you bring all of the hopes and struggles of your mundane, everyday life and find them suddenly endowed with greater meaning by the worship of a Creator God and by the rich connections within a church family.
At 12:25 Monday morning, I finally gave birth to my beautiful daughter. It was a long, long, long time coming. But despite being my longest labor, it was also exceedingly special because when I was at my most frustrated and fatigued, I was able to go to church. A year later, that fact serves as a reminder that church isn’t merely where I take a time out from life, but rather it is where I take all that is significantly joyful and/or painful in my life and lay it before my church family and my God.
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