The Third Birth: A Story of Humility

It was not an empowering birth, but it was a humbling one. It was 3:30 am and I was in denial – the ungodliest of hours to feel such gravity. The muscles were contracting on an interval; I was curling my toes every time they were doing so. It can’t be happening, it can’t be happening, I thought. I was still six weeks away from my due date. I didn’t want to tell my husband because I didn’t want it to be true. But when half an hour passed, I woke him and he sat up in shock and worry. I checked myself in the bathroom and the next sign of labor was there – bloody discharge.

As we were dressing for the hospital, I started to sob. My husband said, ‘I know, I know.’ He knew that I was not crying because of the pain but because of our foiled plans. For months, our hearts were set on having a home birth. My daughter showed me that I could do it. Researching about it made me believe that a home birth would give me the fullest experience of bringing a child into the world.

Instead, I felt bitterness atop of the pain – when I was wheeled into the delivery room, when I had to say goodbye to my husband, when they sent the epidural down my spine, when they swabbed me, when the bright lights and white walls surrounded me. I was supposed to be in my new home with my husband as my birth partner, my children as my witnesses. I was on the edge of getting angry with God, for putting a wrench into my plans once again. Except I called onto Him and all of Heaven when they told me to push, push, and push.

And then… two hours since I woke to the pain, six weeks early, I heard my little son erupt in cries. My eyes welled with tears, my heart was broken but also full – my third child was born but there was plastic between us, I couldn’t hold him, my loved ones were not beside me. I had to endure 24 hours of recovery all by myself; I never felt so alone. It was the exact opposite of what we dreamed of for our third birth. I felt so robbed of the experience, so stripped down to vulnerability, naked and ashamed.

I felt the cracks go even deeper when my husband and I finally visited our son. I’ll never forget that moment as I stood from the wheelchair – it was our tiny son in an incubator with tubes all over him, his breathing was abnormal and rapid. How could someone so small suffer so much? I looked at my husband and we both couldn’t hold back our tears. I felt it was all my fault – all the stress I felt throughout the pregnancy I passed onto my baby. He could still be growing naturally inside my womb; in reality, he was in an incubator, unable to be held by his parents, unable to breathe on his own. It is such a deep level of suffering when you cannot go home with your baby and instead, leave him in the hospital. But by God’s grace, after 11 days, he came home to us and we officially became a family of five… much earlier than we planned.

It was supposed to be a story of woman empowerment, of the strength of a woman’s body. Yet here I am writing a story of vulnerability. Apparently, God knew that I did not need any more empowering. We already hear of those often these days. He wanted me to embrace the experience of weakness because it is only there where His glory, grandeur, and love can radiate. It is only in the cracks where the light can shine. It is only in the deepest, darkest part of the well where we can find the waters. It was in the white walls, the loneliness, the separation from my babe and my husband where God – only God - was in my midst. Ironically, it was in weakness where I found empowerment… not in the shattering of glass ceilings but in the shattering of ego, of self.

The birth of my third son, Kolbe, was never designed to be a show of a woman’s body. He willed the birth to show the strength of a woman’s spirit, of a mother’s submission to her children. This is my body given up for you; this is my will given up for you. It is only in the surrendering of our lives where we can create life. And instead, it became the story of Kolbe and his first days in this world as a fighter. In so many ways, he was so much stronger than I ever was during those fragile weeks. By breathing with his tiny lungs, he showed me how to breathe through the uncertainty. Once again, it was my child who showed me the way to the light.

Motherhood is truly an upside down world but there’s no other place that can give you such a depth of love, of wisdom, and of life. I’m so blessed that I have a third one to lead me into this world… and he even showed up quite early. Thank you, Kolbe. What a life we’re going to share together!