On Birth Mirrors and Broken Things

And when it feels like Stravinsky is composing our life story

I’d hardly been in labor and delivery triage for 20 minutes before the intake nurse asked if I wanted a mirror placed at the foot of my bed during transitional labor. When I asked why, she paused and said, “well, to watch the birth!” 

In between otherworldly contractions, I gasped: hell no. I already loved this child more than I could have ever imagined, and I hadn’t even laid eyes on him yet. But I certainly didn’t need to actually watch his great debut. 

In retrospect, this was a very good decision: if birth looked remotely like it felt, then it was definitely not something I’d ever want to see. 

My husband’s chalky white countenance during the last few minutes of pushing was confirmation enough that I’d made the right choice.

***

I took a music class in college that involved comparing significant pieces from different time periods. One week, we studied Vivaldi’s “La Primavera (Spring)” in contrast to Stravinsky’s “The Rite of Spring.” Though the subject matter—the dawning of Spring—was the same, we collectively remarked at the stark differences between the two pieces. Vivaldi’s was cohesive and calming, sanguine and joyful. Just a few minutes into the first movement, you could just picture someone twirling in a field, surrounded by daisies and fluffy sheep. Stravinsky’s, on the other hand, was dissonant, chaotic, percussive. While Vivaldi had made Spring feel effortlessly celebratory, Stravinsky’s piece conveyed a disorienting sense of violence. 

Our professor, a quirky octogenarian with a shining bald head and a blazer three sizes too large, pointed out that Stravinsky was really onto something. Buds, shoots, and leaves have to break something else—frozen ground, brittle branches, brown stalks—in order to claim their space in nature. When you truly think about it, Spring is actually a bit violent. It’s not always pretty to watch, particularly in those moments of breaking, cracking, opening, pushing. 

***

Have you ever been caught in a season of growth or transition that makes you feel like someone’s constantly pulling on some part of your body and stretching it out? That’s me, right now. 

They say God gives us crosses unique to us because he knows what will purify us the most. The unique personal and professional pressing he’s invited me into has forced growth in virtues I would’ve preferred to just bypass, a lot like I passed on the birth mirror. Hell no. That’s just…too much. 

But whether you accept the birth mirror or not, at some point, you have to accept that no one is going to push for you.

***

I’ve been struck by how fascinated we are with birth stories, and lately, I’ve heard some outlandish ones. My neighbor mistook transitional labor for Braxton-Hicks and ended up having her baby on her bathroom floor, with her phone propped against the baseboard and her midwife on a Facetime call. Once I heard a story about a woman who accidentally had her baby while sitting on a toilet. And my second son, Liam, was sliced right out of me in a swirl of shouting, caustic light, and clanking metal instruments: all in less than five minutes.

Birth is traumatic even in the best of cases, which I think could be why we love to talk about it. The paradox is simply fascinating: new life comes, but it’s not coming without a fight.

***

Every year I learn more and more that newness of all kinds— new beginnings, new growth, new gifts—doesn't look like the in-full-bloom flowers, the full-grown (ideally potty-trained) child, the mature, well-adjusted adult. 

It looks messy, painful, bloody, forceful, and sometimes gross. Though the aesthetes among us might try to deny it, it’s often way more Stravinsky than Vivaldi.

***

I think there’s a reason that the ubiquitous symbol of the Christian faith isn’t an empty tomb; it’s a cross. The knowledge that newness comes through a breaking apart is written into our DNA. And yet, while we might accept this in the watershed moments, like births, we struggle to understand that every day brings us those opportunities to break, to let ourselves be torn and pressed and stretched, to let newness rupture the tight flesh of our old selves. We resist, and we claw for a way out. We want the newness without the breaking. We don’t like ugly, gross, bloody. We don’t want to be stretched out, especially if there’s nothing tangible to show for it in the end.

But what if we can trust that a long season that feels a bit like a painful birth will, indeed, result in new life, even if that new life is just our own healing, our own growth? Can we endure the breaking even if the newness is still months, years, or decades away? If suffering feels fruitless and there’s no promise of a baby or an impending warm summer ahead, can we still trust that something Good is, indeed, happening?

On the one hand, I’ll tell you: I am still in the thick of it, so this is TBD for me.

But on the other hand, I can look at the evidence, and confidently, resoundingly, cry, yes!

Yes. When I look at the way this world is designed, from a broad level to an elemental one, I can see the evidence that extreme pressure, heat, stress, or other intense forces are indeed necessary to craft something new. Crude metals are purified through melting. High-heat cooking draws out some of the best flavors of food. There simply is no fine metal, no culinary masterpiece, no new life at all without a fundamental rearranging of the very matter at stake. The elements as we know them cease to exist. These ingredients. This metal. This Childless Woman who has suddenly become a Mother. 

In the pressing, crushing, stretching, and breaking apart, can we just believe that we, too, are masterpieces in progress? Do you truly, in your heart, believe that with the rearranging, the breaking, the bleeding, comes something Very, Very Good?

I hope so. Because, gracious friend, I sure do. 

Journaling Prompts

• Are you in a season of stretching right now? What has personal growth looked like for you lately? How has it felt?

• Are you willing to press into the pain points a bit? Have you been trying to bypass or avoid the growth? Why?

• What are some other times in your life that you’ve felt particularly pressed? Looking back, what fruit did those seasons of pressing bear? What Very Good things came from those seasons?

An Invitation to You

It can be especially difficult to weather personal challenges when we are bombarded with content about self-care and the need to “fill our own cups.” Some days, weeks, or even months don’t allow much time or space for cup-filling, and bemoaning our own lack of margin, resources, or energy will only increase our sense of dissatisfaction. 

Take a week to unplug from unnecessary technology. Instead, spend time with friends who offer sound advice. Talk to them. Ask them how they’ve managed challenging seasons. Ask them to pray for you, over you, with you. Or, just do something fun together, laugh together, let yourself feel light for a while. You don’t need to go out of your way to “fill your cup.” Relationships with wise, grounded, supportive people will be nourishment enough.

Food to Try

Speaking of nourishment, in a desperate attempt to use up vegetables that were about to go bad, I completely made up a recipe that turned out really well. This rarely happens, so I wanted to share it.

Fajita Pasta - Serves 2 

• 8-ounce box of your favorite pasta

• 2 tbsp butter

• 1 tbsp chili powder

• ¼ tsp salt

• ½ tsp cumin

• 1 tsp garlic powder

• 2 cups of fresh spinach, torn

• 1 cup frozen corn kernels, slightly thawed

• 1 green bell pepper, diced

• 2 small red onions (or one large), sliced thinly

• 1 cup shredded sharp white cheddar cheese

Add butter to a skillet on medium heat; add onion, pepper, corn, salt, cumin, garlic powder, and cumin. 

Meanwhile, cook the pasta. 

Add spinach to the skillet. Drain pasta and add. 

Off heat, mix in the cheese, and serve!

Food for Thought

I loved this Verily article on the romance of thrift:

“The soul of romance is creativity. Dramatic gestures and lavish gifts can certainly communicate affection, but only to the extent they demonstrate understanding of the other. Creativity allows imagination and energy to merge into an original demonstration of love. The very word romance initially meant something like, “stories of adventure or legend,” which require creative vision.”

Elayne Allen challenges the “think for yourself” paradigm in this fascinating piece in the Washington Examiner:

“This fact of our intellectual codependence indicates that people naturally need outside guidance, authority, and support. Accepting this is freeing: It should open us to the enrichment of other minds and experiences across times and places. We need not be immediately skeptical of longstanding institutions, which develop traditions of inquiry that become refined over time and seek deeper, fuller wisdom. Under their guidance, reason reaches new heights: Miracles, when considered alongside minds wiser and more virtuous than our own, suddenly seem reasonable.”

Finally, I absolutely loved this essay on the paradoxical peace of parenthood:

“That parenting is joyful might not seem like much of a revelation. On the other hand, parents often look harried and feel panicked. Though parenting is stressful, it gives rise to joyful relationships in which we feel fundamentally at peace because we’re not afraid or distracted, no longer striving for unattainable things or preoccupied with trivial concerns. There is, as Wuellner put it, no need for “further intense effort or uncertainty.” Michael Oakeshott noted that a child’s game is joyful because it has “no ulterior purpose, no further result aimed at; . . . it is not a striving after what one has not got.” The same might be said of parenting itself, of loving and treasuring our children for who they are and not for the value or utility of what they can offer.”

A Prayer for You

If you find yourself in your own season of stretching, consider this prayer from St. Josemaria Escriva:

Come, O Holy Spirit: enlighten my understanding to know your commands; strengthen my heart against the wiles of the enemy; inflame my will … I have heard your voice, and I don’t want to harden my heart to resisting, by saying “later … tomorrow.” Nunc coepi! Now! Lest there be no tomorrow for me! O, Spirit of truth and wisdom, Spirit of understanding and counsel, Spirit of joy and peace! I want what you want, I want it because you want it, I want it as you want it, I want it when you want it.

Until next time, with love, 

Alex