The Secret in Labor Pain
She gripped my hand with all of her strength, squeezing my fingers as she squeezed her eyes shut and clenched her whole body with the contraction. When I had arrived to the hospital to start my shift earlier that evening, she was only two centimeters dilated and having irregular contractions about every fifteen minutes. Now, at 4:30 am, her contractions were coming every two minutes like clockwork. As her labor had progressed, I had been at her side.
Although I often feel quite useless when it comes to comforting women in labor (keep in mind that these women undergo the entire labor process without a single pain killing drug), I do what I can, like for this woman. I brought fresh water from time to time and encouraged her to drink. I rubbed her back when she leaned over the bed with contraction pains. I listened to the baby’s heartbeat frequently and reassured her each time that he was doing well and looking forward to meeting her. I tried to offer reassuring words and tell her she was doing a good job.
Yet all of it never seems to help too much no matter what you do, you just cannot take away the pain. The pain that keeps coming faster and faster, with less and less of a rest in between. The pain that keeps getting more and more intense as delivery approaches.
I wanted to tell her that when the baby arrived, she would forget all the pain and feel only joy, but for some reason that didn’t feel appropriate - it might even be taken as phony - when she was vocalizing her pain with every contraction and breathing exhaustedly between them.
At one point in the night, one of the nurses from another station down the hall came and told me that my patient was being loud and asked me if I would tell her to be quiet, which I actually thought was quite hilarious. “She’s in labor,” I explained with just a hint of “duh” in my voice. I wanted to add, “You feel what she’s feeling and then tell her yourself to be quiet!” (I didn’t say this of course, I just kindly explained that her vocalization is a normal and healthy part of the delivery process.)
So after several hours of strong labor and intense pain, her water broke on it’s own, and as the doctor examined her, her eyes looked into mine for reassurance. “You are progressing so well,” I encouraged her. “With the next contraction, you will be ready to start pushing.”
“You aren’t going to take your gloves off, are you?” She pleaded with me. “No,” I said, “I’m staying here with you until your baby arrives.”
She pushed like a champ, and within a few minutes I was placing a beautiful baby girl in her arms. In an instant, I saw the miracle I had been waiting for unfold before my eyes. The one that I wanted to tell her about in advance, but you just can’t. Each women has to experience it for herself, and I have the privilege of holding the secret and anticipating the unfolding each time.
It happens when the unimaginable pain is finally over and then completely forgotten, washed away like dust in the overwhelming rush of joy and love of a mother for her child.
I placed the baby on her chest, and she covered it’s head with her hand. The same hand that almost squeezed my fingers off two minutes before now gently brushed her baby’s wet hair.
“Shh,” she whispered and the little one stopped crying. “I have you, and I love you.”
“When a woman is giving birth, she has sorrow because her hour has come, but when she has delivered the baby, she no longer remembers the anguish, for joy that a human being has been born into the world. So also you have sorrow now, but I will see you again, and your hearts will rejoice, and no one will take your joy from you.”
Jesus said this (John 16:21-22) to his disciples before he died, and we can easily see how what he said was true for the disciples, who grieved his death and then rejoiced fully at his resurrection. What’s not so easy to see is how Jesus is still doing the same thing for us, making the same promise to us. The things that bring us momentary sorrow now are achieving for us a far greater glory. The pain of this short life will be swept away in joy when we see him again. It’s all labor pain, and each one of us must each experience for ourselves the miracle that happens when something new is born and our sorrow is forgotten in the love of the Father for his children.
But until then, I know a secret - one that I will whisper in your ear if you are ready to hear it, even if you are squeezing my fingers off with the pain of each contractions. I know it hurts, and I know there is very little I can do to ease the pain, but a time is coming when our sorrow will be completely, entirely, totally forgotten. When you see him face to face, “your hearts will rejoice, and no one will take your joy from you.”
Although I often feel quite useless when it comes to comforting women in labor (keep in mind that these women undergo the entire labor process without a single pain killing drug), I do what I can, like for this woman. I brought fresh water from time to time and encouraged her to drink. I rubbed her back when she leaned over the bed with contraction pains. I listened to the baby’s heartbeat frequently and reassured her each time that he was doing well and looking forward to meeting her. I tried to offer reassuring words and tell her she was doing a good job.
Yet all of it never seems to help too much no matter what you do, you just cannot take away the pain. The pain that keeps coming faster and faster, with less and less of a rest in between. The pain that keeps getting more and more intense as delivery approaches.
I wanted to tell her that when the baby arrived, she would forget all the pain and feel only joy, but for some reason that didn’t feel appropriate - it might even be taken as phony - when she was vocalizing her pain with every contraction and breathing exhaustedly between them.
At one point in the night, one of the nurses from another station down the hall came and told me that my patient was being loud and asked me if I would tell her to be quiet, which I actually thought was quite hilarious. “She’s in labor,” I explained with just a hint of “duh” in my voice. I wanted to add, “You feel what she’s feeling and then tell her yourself to be quiet!” (I didn’t say this of course, I just kindly explained that her vocalization is a normal and healthy part of the delivery process.)
So after several hours of strong labor and intense pain, her water broke on it’s own, and as the doctor examined her, her eyes looked into mine for reassurance. “You are progressing so well,” I encouraged her. “With the next contraction, you will be ready to start pushing.”
“You aren’t going to take your gloves off, are you?” She pleaded with me. “No,” I said, “I’m staying here with you until your baby arrives.”
She pushed like a champ, and within a few minutes I was placing a beautiful baby girl in her arms. In an instant, I saw the miracle I had been waiting for unfold before my eyes. The one that I wanted to tell her about in advance, but you just can’t. Each women has to experience it for herself, and I have the privilege of holding the secret and anticipating the unfolding each time.
It happens when the unimaginable pain is finally over and then completely forgotten, washed away like dust in the overwhelming rush of joy and love of a mother for her child.
I placed the baby on her chest, and she covered it’s head with her hand. The same hand that almost squeezed my fingers off two minutes before now gently brushed her baby’s wet hair.
“Shh,” she whispered and the little one stopped crying. “I have you, and I love you.”
“When a woman is giving birth, she has sorrow because her hour has come, but when she has delivered the baby, she no longer remembers the anguish, for joy that a human being has been born into the world. So also you have sorrow now, but I will see you again, and your hearts will rejoice, and no one will take your joy from you.”
Jesus said this (John 16:21-22) to his disciples before he died, and we can easily see how what he said was true for the disciples, who grieved his death and then rejoiced fully at his resurrection. What’s not so easy to see is how Jesus is still doing the same thing for us, making the same promise to us. The things that bring us momentary sorrow now are achieving for us a far greater glory. The pain of this short life will be swept away in joy when we see him again. It’s all labor pain, and each one of us must each experience for ourselves the miracle that happens when something new is born and our sorrow is forgotten in the love of the Father for his children.
But until then, I know a secret - one that I will whisper in your ear if you are ready to hear it, even if you are squeezing my fingers off with the pain of each contractions. I know it hurts, and I know there is very little I can do to ease the pain, but a time is coming when our sorrow will be completely, entirely, totally forgotten. When you see him face to face, “your hearts will rejoice, and no one will take your joy from you.”
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