I stood leaning over the hospital bed and started to sob.
It was my third time to give birth, and my first time to do so without the support of a doula or my mother, who had stayed at the house to keep the girls. It was a busy night for the midwife, with several women giving birth at once - I had gotten the last delivery room when I arrived that afternoon - and the nurse would only pop in periodically to see how things were progressing. My second child arrived 45 minutes after I got to the hospital, so I was told any subsequent births would be similarly swift. Yet. Hours after labor had begun in earnest, the contractions kept coming like crashing waves but I had no indication that the end was in sight. I was playing a little game with myself to try to pass the time. I'd look at the clock and think to myself, "Okay. This baby will be here in two hours. By ten o'clock you will meet your son. You've got this." And then at ten, I would repeat this promise to myself. "By noon. He'll be here by noon." (Some proponents of natural childbirth say that it's not really pain you are experiencing during childbirth, and that you must simply reframe it in your mind. Isn't that precious?) I began to cry, uncertain of how much longer I could withstand the pain without the arrival of my favorite part of the labor process - the part when I get to push. (Again, some people claim that no pushing is necessary and that you can simply "breathe the baby down." I guess my mind isn't strong enough for this.) The part when it doesn't feel like I'm on a roller coaster of pain because there is finally a modicum of control, an active participation on my part. But that part hadn't arrived yet, and so I cried.
My husband, who stood behind me rubbing my back, said, almost under his breath, "You're crying. You must be in transition. You always cry when you're in transition."
His words were like a second wind for me. Aha! I'm in transition. The most intense part of the birthing process, the part that comes right before the pushing, the part that means, this baby is actually coming. Of all of the wonderful ways he supported me through that process, his recognition that I was in transition was by far the most helpful. I was too deep in the middle of it to recognize it for myself, but because he had been with me each time, he knew what was happening. There was a light at the end of the tunnel. There was hope and renewed strength, there was energy. And on the other side of the pain, there was a beautiful birth.
Fast forward a couple of years to an empty house, the last of the boxes loaded on the moving truck, the final moments in the place we had called home for the past two years. The only home my son had ever known. The place my girls had learned to swing with their feet reaching toward the sky, the place my oldest had started Kindergarten, the place we had carved out friendships in a new town for the first time. The place we had made countless memories as a family as we picked strawberries and hiked at Radnor Lake and returned to the family-owned pumpkin patch for the fall festivities. The place with the changing seasons and rolling hills and so much beauty you could burst. Home. And we were leaving it.
I did what I always do when we move out of a house. I went from room to room, gathering up the memories that took place in each, treasuring them up in my heart, awash in gratitude for the time spent in that place. Thankful. And I cried. My children climbed up in my lap as I sat sobbing on the floor in my son's room, looking out the window for the last time. And it occurred to me - you're in transition.
Transition. The most intense part, the most challenging part. The part that brings you to your knees and wracks your body with sobs. The part that happens right before you give birth to something beautiful.
And really, so much of our lives are spent in transition. We move, we get married, we get divorced, we have children, we make new friends, we say goodbye to old friends, we begin a new job, we start a new school. Old ways of thinking about God, of how we see the world, are pulled out from under us like a rug, giving birth to new theologies and fresh perspectives. We work to give up bad habits and addictions, we try again and again to begin anew. We grow up. We try to figure out our place in this brutal, beautiful world. New things are painful. Or rather, letting go of the old and familiar things is painful. The process of being in transition, the places where we haven't yet given birth and the pain is crashing down in seemingly unending waves.
I think the best thing we can do for one another is to speak truth to the process, to recognize the pain of another during their time of transition, to recognize the transition itself when those around us are too blinded by the pain to see it for what it is. There is a light at the end of the tunnel, there is something beyond the pain you feel in this moment, there is something beautiful waiting to be born. Let us hold up a candle in the darkness. Let us see the tears of another and lovingly reassure them - I know why you're crying. You're in transition.
