As tears streamed down my cheeks, three faces stood looking at me with concern. The nurse, who had faithfully helped reposition me over and over again to help progress my labor in the passing hours, sticking her fingers inside me to help direct my pushing. My doctor, who had not once during my prenatal care said the word “c-section” and who now held my hand and told me the procedure did not mean I was a failure. And my husband, who for sixty hours had been by my side helping coach my breathing, hold me throughout bouts of uncontrollable shaking, and read scripture to remind me of God’s presence, and whose face now showed an undeniable mixture of fear and relief. I finally accepted the inevitable, recalling stories of friends who had tried to keep pushing only to find themselves dealing with additional complications.

I lay on the operating table, my arms stretched out and deep sorrow welling up in my soul. All of the questions about how I got there and whether it was really necessary came later. At the moment, all I felt was fear like I had never felt it before - and underneath it an emotional pain that made me completely passive. Undoubtedly the heavy doses of drugs were partially to answer for the utter surrender I found myself experiencing; but they did not explain it all. As I lay on the table, I realized I was truly and finally at the end of waiting for motherhood. My baby was going to arrive, but she would arrive in the most invasive and scary way I could imagine. And as the operating room chatter of doctors and nurses quickly indicated, even the details of my brightly lit, highly anesthetized delivery would not be easy. The baby was so stuck that normal procedure could not take place.

As the tugging and pulling commenced and continued, I closed my eyes. In my heart I reached out to God and he met me. Story after story of broken women flashed across my mind. Through scripture, God reminded me of his closeness to women who suffer. I thought about Sarah. I thought about Mary. I thought a lot about the woman healed of bleeding. Lying on the operating table I felt unbelievably small. But it was in that smallness that God fellowshipped with me and reminded me of the ways he has seen the small, hidden things of female existence. Now more than ever I understood the suffering of women described over and over again in the Bible and as I was ministered to by the Holy Spirit, I loved the God who condescends to see us.

The worst moment of the entire last nine months came at the very end. As they finally lifted the baby out of me, she did not cry. For an eternity I listened to doctors repeat questions and return answers about their efforts to invoke her cry. In reality this did not last longer than a minute, but that minute was fire through my brain. Everything about the last nine months snapped and all of my concerns about myself, about my identity, about my future were burned up with the overwhelming desire to know that my baby would breathe. In an instant I dropped every fear I had about what motherhood would do to me because all of those fears could not compete with the resounding thought that my baby was not okay. Until a kind nurse came to reassure him that our little girl had a good heartbeat despite the continued need for her to cry, my husband sat on the edge of insanity. But soon the cry came, and it came loudly.

Verity Ann was born at 12:53pm on Sunday, April 30, 2017. As the doctors continued to stitch and medicate me, she was brought to my chest and I said, “Hello, baby.” She couldn’t stay long, though, and it was my greatest relief to send her daddy to watch as the nurses cleaned and assisted her. She was not alone.

In the weeks since my daughter’s birth, I have dealt with myriad emotions. Against the backdrop of relief, I’ve doubted doctors, I’ve doubted myself, I’ve doubted the system - all to arrive back and back again at the belief that everyone did both what they could and what they should have done. In the end, what I have had to accept is not the I or someone else screwed myself over, but rather that I have a broken body. Despite everyone’s best efforts and even in the shadow of God’s providence, my daughter’s birth left scars on my body that will not be removed until the full redemption of all matter. My womb, which was not meant to be, was cut open and sewed back closed and this mark on my body that will not go away until the dust I’m a part of is remade again.

I’ve seen a lot of women online speak of pride in their “battle scars.” I understand why women speak this way. It helps to bring honor to a process that easily feels like your biggest failure as a woman. I too feel like I went through battle and was willing to do whatever necessary to win, even letting my flesh be cut, pulled, and sewn in order to ensure victory. I too feel as if the scars left behind are a badge of my experience. But this term - “battle scars” - only reminds me that things are not as they should be. It’s a term that speaks to the sacrifice made and the victory I had, but also that all was not right to begin with. Battle is only something we enter into when something is broken, flawed. Just as the wounds of the soldier will one day be erased along with all bloodshed and war, so too the scars left behind by the battles women have faced in birthing. The dust of our existence will be renewed. “For he knows our frame; he remembers that we are dust” (Psalm 103:14). God has not forgotten who we are.

Since her arrival, my daughter has brought me more joy than I could have possibly imagined. When I look into her eyes, when she smiles as she poops, when she sticks out her tongue in hunger, when her eyes finally close in sleep - all of these things are a new song for my soul. These and countless other things about her life and person. It amazes me how quickly this joy flooded my life. Almost from the moment she was born, her existence reduced the worry of other unhappy things going on. The long labor, the unfortunate c-section, the initial frustrations of nursing, the discomfort of the hospital, the sleepless nights all so easily and so quickly faded into the joy of life. Verity does not fulfill me. But her life makes me happy and it is something I love to celebrate every day.

But I am not very good at writing about my joys. Words are hard for me when I turn to describing the things that make me happy. I wish so badly that I could find better ways to describe the joy I find in being Verity’s mother and in embracing her as my daughter. And I wish that I had known more of this joy during my pregnancy. Now that I know how happy it can be to have a child I wish I had celebrated her preparation every day. 

In the end, it is a matter of love. “There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear. For fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not been perfected in love” (1 John 4:18). How can I be afraid of motherhood when I love my child so much? How can I be afraid of change when God has given me so much? There is no punishment for me. I am free to love, and it is love that makes me brave.
 
During one of our nights in the hospital I got up to go to the bathroom. It was the first night without the catheter, so I had to make myself walk despite the very painful incision and my abs that could barely support sitting on the toilet. I stood in the bathroom and thought about my beat up body. It made me feel very very small. I hadn’t felt that way since I lived in China. The only other time I have ever felt that small was during a bus ride across the vast expanse of a Chinese megalopolis. I sat by the window, looking out at thousands of people passing by, knowing they were only a small portion of China's billion, and I and my problems became small. I was lost among these people, invisible. And the small sufferings I faced living in their country were small indeed. But as I rode on the bus, I knew that while smallness most often means vulnerability, it can also mean hiddenness.  On that ride I knew myself to be hidden in God’s hand. To be small can be frightening, but only if you are exposed, abandoned. When something small is hidden within something large, when it is sheltered and protected, it is not a terrifying position.

Since becoming a mother, I have felt very small. But I am learning that is ok, because throughout scripture it is the small to whom the Lord promises to be near. The weak, the vulnerable, the scared, the hurt, the uncertain - these are the people who receive the promises of God. In the recent weeks, the birth of my daughter has given me the privilege of knowing myself included.

At Home, Cambridge, Massachusetts
 
I want you to be my love
I want you to be my love
'Neath the moon and the stars above
I want you to be my love
 
I want you to know me now
I want you to know me now
Break a promise make a vow
I know, you want me now
 
Like I want you
Like I want you
 
I want you to be my love
I want you to be my love
'Neath the moon and the stars above
I want you to be my love
 
'Cause I want you
'Cause I want you
I know all you
All you've been through
 
- Over the Rhine
 
Dear Trey,
 
We’re getting to the end of this. Very soon, maybe sooner than we anticipated, we will no longer be just the two of us. We will be three, a change we will never go back on. I’m crying as I write this, not because I don’t want us to be three, and not just because of the hormones that seem to rage through me these days, but because the last five years have truly been better and more beautiful than I could ever have hoped for or imagined.
 
Our first dance song is playing right now and all I can think about is how afraid I was, even during that first dance. You have put up with so much fear. I hope I have not driven you crazy. But you have been my rock again and again. And you have been my truest friend. I am ready for this next step and more than excited to take it with you, but I also mourn the passing of this particular time we’ve had together. Our special little world is expanding, and though it is for the better good, I will always miss this world we have lived in for that past five years.
 
I know you will be a good father, just as you have been a wonderful husband. It may be years, most likely decades, before our little girl truly understands what she has in you. But I will know, and I will encourage her to see and understand it.
 
Thank you for loving me. Thank you for hearing me. Thank you rolling your eyes at me when I need them to be rolled. Thank you for laughing at me the way you do. Thank you giving me joy. Thank you telling me all about the weird, nerdy things you tell me about. Thank you for your stubbornness. Thank you for kind, sensitive heart. Thank you for being mine.
 
Let’s do this.

At Home, Arlington, Massachusetts
 
I have been feeling so much affection for my baby in recent days. It seems like all of the warm, glowy feelings people kept asking me about are finally here. I'm sure a lot of it is feeling the baby move so much. I feel it move enough now that I do not feel anxious about whether it is still alive. When I first started to feel it move, it was infrequent enough that I had a hard time not having anxiety when days passed without feeling it. Now I feel it just about every day. It's like a little goldfish swimming around in there. Sometimes it makes my heart want to burst. I've never been a big baby person generally speaking, but when I think about my own baby, and about kissing its little cheeks, my heart swarms with a million happy thoughts.
 
Anxiety is a funny thing. Throughout so much of this pregnancy, and really throughout so much of my life, I recognize in myself the thought that I should feel anxious. Sometimes it feels like all of modern life is conspiring to make sure you are informed about the thousand reasons why you should be anxious. Have I eaten the right things? Did I eat something that might hurt the baby? If this happens what does it mean? If they do all these tests, doesn't it mean this many things can go wrong? There are literally thousands of things to worry about in pregnancy if one chose to do so. And it's not even pregnancy itself as a medical condition. Parenthood is an even bigger landmine. Do we live in the right place? Do we make enough money? How can we guarantee our income? How can I work and still be the mother I want to be? Again, there are thousands of things to worry about it if one chooses to do so.
 
Oddly enough, I have felt less anxious, or at least less tempted to be anxious, during this pregnancy than maybe ever before in my life. I'm sure that will come and go – I'll have peaks and valleys as always – but being pregnant has made me have to just accept the flow of life and go with it. Sometimes it feels like I've stepped into a river and I have to put my feet up in order to let it move me forward. There's less anxiety in that than in trying to keep my feet stubbornly rooted. I don't know that we've made the best choices, I don't know that we will in the future. I don't know how to do everything I want to do. I don't know how to make it all work out. But I also can't pretend like God hasn't faithfully guided us already and will do so in the future. Our decisions very well could hurt us at some point in life, but God never will.
 
The best antidote I've found in recent weeks to the temptation to worry is that of thankfulness. I'm sure to a million people wiser than me that seems like an obvious statement. But it's something I am only really experiencing now. I am so deeply thankful to God for the life I have. I am thankful for his material provision in our lives. I'm thankful for how easy it was to get pregnant after all of my fretting. I'm thankful for my work and the jobs he's given me. I'm thankful for the brain he has given me and the education I've received. I'm thankful for my friends and for my family. I'm thankful for Trey. These are all things I worry about so much, but when I stop and reflect with a thankful heart, I truly feel differently. At times I'm overwhelmed with the goodness God has given us. He has even given me a washer and dryer in the new apartment – something so small and trifling and yet so big in my mind as a blessing. There are times in my life when I can't help but consider the ways in which God not only blesses, but blesses abundantly through the little trifles which can seem so important.
 
Tomorrow we find out the baby's gender. I can't wait. It feels like our first introduction to a new friend. I am so thankful for this little life and I pray that God will protect and bless it, just as he has done for me.

(Erik Cleves Kristensen, "Painting of a Madonna.")

Semitic Museum of Harvard, Cambridge, Massachusetts
 
The last couple of weeks have been rough. Job uncertainties, first steps to looking for another job that didn’t lead anywhere, intense travel for work, intense conversations for work, depressing elections, political fights with my dad, friends who don't seem to want to be my friend anymore. But they have all also felt somewhat normal. Or not normal, I guess, but maybe more like this is just what adult life looks like. Being an adult isn't easy – everything is so much more serious. Nothing will just be ok with time. The decisions I make and the words I speak now have far more implications for my life than they did ten years ago. At times it's all felt so heavy, as if the new normal in life requires adaptation to heavier burdens.
 
But this morning while I was getting dressed, all of the sudden I felt an inexplicable joy. I just felt happy. I don't know why, but I did, and I'm thankful for it. The burdens are still there and they won't go away, but there is a profound space for joy and contentment in the world and I felt it this morning.
 
I've started feeling the baby move and it's a wonderful feeling. It's reassuring and comforting, while also being quite surprising. The world this child is coming into is a crazy place with crazy people. And I don't know what this child's life will be like or whether he will honor the Lord, but I'm thankful for this baby and I'm thankful I can feel it move.

At Home, Arlington, Massachusetts
 
Well I haven't written anything here for quite a while. I feel like I went off of birth control and just haven't been able to write. Not in any dark or bad way, but writing somehow just hasn't occupied much of my thought life. The topic of pregnancy and motherhood has – just not writing. The impulse hasn't been there.
 
But here I am, wondering if I'm pregnant. My period was supposed to start yesterday and as of 1pm today it still hasn't. I don't know. I don't think I'm pregnant, but it's not like it's a subjective matter. The funny thing is that every month I've been off the pill, I get to the point of starting my period and I think I'm pregnant. It's just this strong feeling I have, and what's even funnier is that it always makes me really happy. During the rest of the month, I still tend to think about the indefinite "later" as the best time to have a kid. After we've settled into our new work and school schedules, after we've gone to visit friends in New Orleans, after I go to Thailand for a work conference. "Later" is the looming word in my mind when it comes to having a family, but of course, "later" must some day run out. But in the moment, when I'm actually waiting for my period to start and think that it won't, I have so much peace and calmness, and all feels right with the world. It makes me happy.
 
Seeing H. and meeting baby J. was really good for me. H. is pretty much recognizable as herself now that she is a mother. And she's not psycho about it all. She's just normal – or at least what I've always felt should be normal. She hasn't lost her brain and she is still really fun and interesting to talk to. J. is a part of her life, not the sole summary of her life.
 
My mind can't stop thinking that maybe, right now, the process of creating life is already occurring. It sends bubbles all through me. I'm giving it until tonight and then I'm taking a pregnancy test.

(Image by srasteria, "50-2.")

At Home, Arlington, Massachusetts
 
I so want to be a more joyful person. I have struggled deeply with joy this week, and I must confess that I have failed. And for no reason at all. My life is exceptionally good right now. I'm excelling in my CELTA course. I received a scholarship at Gordon-Conwell. My husband has cooked breakfast for me every morning. I just went shopping for the afternoon and bought us clothing we probably don't actually need. My church preaches the gospel and I have friends who want to spend time with me. And yet, I haven't had such a difficult and miserable week in years. The main culprit was exhaustion. I'm halfway through this CELTA course and it's felt like being in finals for two weeks. There is a real reason why joy has been challenging this past week. But I want, want, want to be a joyful person even when life is stressful, even when I am exhausted. I want to be able to have and display joy to my future children when they've kept me up all night and I'm exhausted. If I can't be joyful now when I'm tired, how can I ever hope to be so when the craziness goes through the roof? I need to pray and I need to ask God to work in my heart now, this moment, this week, transforming me into a bearer a joy now, not later, when it will be even harder.

At Home, Arlington, Massachusetts
 
I've been thinking a lot about how scary it is for me to think about giving up work to be a mother. I know that all mothers don't stop working, but most at least significantly alter their working life. At the minimum, I believe that as a mother, I would need to hold all of my work very loosely, willing to give it up if necessary for the good of my family. I think the recognition that having children could very well end my work identity is part of what scares me about having children.
 
The truth is, I am not the same person I was ten years ago. I once saw marriage and children as an escape, as a creative outlet for a life that I wasn't happy with. Everything in my life professionally made me afraid. Everything. The idea of pursuing something, sacrificing for something, and loving it, could never have entered my mind. I wanted many of the same things I want now concerning family life, but I wanted them for the wrong reasons - for meaning and fulfillment, for justification of my existence.
 
But I remember the time in life when all of that truly changed. I was 25 years old, living overseas, had experienced heartbreak, and had not a single romantic prospect. It was the most single time of my life. I was single and more than any other time in my life, I knew that singleness was truly what the Lord had called me to that year. And I was deeply and richly fulfilled. I loved my life and for the first time ever, I understood what joy in work was. I found work pleasant and meaningful. It was hard, but it was fascinating and I simply enjoyed it like I had never enjoyed it before.
 
Since that time, work is something I value. It's something that I like. I like my work. I don't need to run away from it into the fulfillment of a family. I don't need children and pregnancy to feel fulfilled. I am content and joyful now. This doesn't mean that I don't want a family, but it does mean that I don't feel the need to be a mother in order to find something that I enjoy doing. Once I did need that, now I don't.
 
The truth is that people do change and it's not always a bad thing. Of course I want children and a family, but just because that desire has been complicated by the discovery of my identity professionally, it does not mean that the changes in my life are for the worst. No one is stagnant – God is constantly giving us new experiences and new things to ponder and discover. I found out that I actually enjoy work and can find it quite fulfilling. Just because other women don't have this experience, just because it complicates my life, just because it changes things about who I am, these do not make me a bad person. People change. That's not always a bad thing.

At Home, East Arlington, Massachusetts

Last night I dreamed I was pregnant. Like all dreams it devolved into oddness and I ended up being only hysterically pregnant. But for a while I was really pregnant in my dream and it was so happy. I could feel the baby in my womb and an emotional fullness filled my dream. This morning, I've been so excited thinking about having a baby. 

Amazingly, I found myself wanting to get pregnant more than wanting to get a dog. That may sound odd, but I've been wanting to get a dog for years. I've wanted to get one this summer before trying to have a baby, but I'm proud of myself because this morning I realized that if I'm really thinking about working, and being in school, and having a child, then a dog is way too much to add to the mix. And I was ok with it.

I didn't feel a need to control the situation – having all of the ducks I want before starting a family and lining them up perfectly. The warm emotions of being pregnant in my dream continued throughout the day and having a baby was suddenly so much more important and exciting than making sure my desire to have a dog is first fulfilled. I can get a dog for the kids when they are old enough and I'll still enjoy it just as much. And it'll be awesome to teach my children the joy of canines.

Brookwoods Camp, Alton, New Hampshire

I want to be the type of mother who has joy. I've spent the weekend with all sorts of mothers from my church and it's amazing to me how much variety there is. I guess it's no different from all people - some are happy and some are not. But I want to be the kind who is just happy, and not bothered or stressed about everything. I know women who are so relaxed and unconcerned about things. Some just glow peacefulness. They seem to expect and be totally fine with chaos and I want to be like that. I don't want to have pursed lips and a tightened forehead every day of my life as a mother.