by Ellen RM Toner
So. I’ve got two “holy” siblings: a nun and an
almost-priest. Which is great, because not only do I never have to worry about
getting myself to heaven (talk to me—I can hook you up), but every so often I
get little custom-made bits of real spiritual wisdom from the two people who
were nearest and dearest to me all through my childhood.
Something Sister Louise Marie said to me once was that
suffering is the kiss of Christ. Sounds all very romantical and idealistic and
kind of mushy on the surface, but it’s something that’s stuck with me because,
at its heart, it’s deeply profound. As Jesus was the most innocent and holiest
victim there ever was, when he chose to enter into suffering, it was of the
acutest nature because it was so, well, unjust. But he made that choice, and
so, in calling us to follow in his footsteps, to pick up our own crosses, he became
the elixir. And suffering, when undertaken with our sights set on him, is our
gold. So, in my words, what my Sister sister means is not that we should all go
be a bunch of masochists, but that each time suffering is offered to us, or
asked and even demanded, it is Jesus saying, hey, here are my shoes! I think
you can walk in them. So, stand up, and show me what you got. Expect the Lord; do manfully.
Before I dive into this, I feel like I need to say
something: I know I’ve talked a lot over the last couple years about how hard
some things have been. While sympathy is helpful, and acknowledgement is
healing, I hope that by sharing difficult personal things that the primary end
is to share what I think are insights gained and to help other people to
understand stuff that they’re wrestling with, or at least to know that they’re
not alone and that it’s okay to suddenly be having a rough time of dealing with
something that was “supposed” to be easy. One of the most helpful things for me
in processing what happened the night Sonya was born was a conversation I had
with a friend a few months ahead of time. Our labor stories, and our individual
perceptions of our “performances” in them, are strangely similar, and so have
helped me to put some things in perspective and not be so angry at myself. And
though this is shared in a somewhat less personal arena than a living room
couch over a cup of tea, I hope it can be just as helpful for some of you.
I want to talk about two things, both of which are front
and center in my mind each time I go to mass these days. The words of the Consecration
have gotten so much deeper over the last year, taken on a personal resonance
that I didn’t know I was missing: This is
My Body, which is given up for you. This is the Chalice of My Blood. Take, and
drink. And I feel a bit like a little kid who thinks she’s jumping so high
off the couch that she hollers for her daddy’s attention, and also, yes, like
I’m putting on his shoes and clumping around, thinking they actually fit. But
there’s only one way to grow up; little kids are ingenuous enough to reach for
the stars and think they’ve actually touched them. That’s the only way to eventually
get there.
First thing: what do pregnancy and childbirth have to do
with Jesus, and, more specifically, the Consecration? Well, this is from a
letter I wrote to a friend, shared with permission.
You’re allowed to
hate being pregnant, you’re allowed to not be excited, you’re allowed to be
angry and resentful and even a little shocked and horrified by how hard it is.
Before I got so sick, I hadn’t really processed the fact that I was pregnant,
and after I got sick there was only one day in my whole pregnancy that I felt
all glowy and happy about it. One day. The rest, as I’m sure you know, totally
royally sucked. Did I tell you I even prayed for a miscarriage? That’s how much
I hated being pregnant. And I don’t think that means I’m a crap mom, and I know
it doesn’t mean I don’t love Sonya loads right now. It just means that I felt
trapped and foreign and so sick of being incapable. Pregnancy felt endless; I
felt weak and tired, couldn’t sleep, got the most intense leg cramps, had a
horrible shooting pain in my left side for the last half of the pregnancy, and
Jamey trying to kiss me literally made me throw up. Being so incapacitated is
absolutely the worst thing I’ve ever had to deal with, and I cannot tell you
how many times I wanted to escape my own body/life/circumstances, and how many
times Jamey and I talked about how we could never do this again.
About labor… I’m
going to be straight with you, because one of the reasons it was hard for me is
that I felt like no one had warned me about how brutal it could be. I went in
thinking that I knew what it would be like, because I’ve seen it so many times
before, but I was utterly, absurdly caught off guard, and I was super pissed at
all the women in my life who had kept it a secret. Irrational? Yes. Because
obviously there was no conspiracy to keep me in the dark, but still, why hadn’t
they told me?! Maybe because there are no words. The only words I can think of
to really get at the heart of it are from the Consecration: This is my Body,
which is given up for you. I definitely
thought a lot about those words during the pregnancy, for obvious reasons, but
now each time I’m at mass I think about giving birth, and how everything hurt
in ways I didn’t know existed, in blinding, searing, consuming pain that pushed
every thought and image out of my head except the Crucifixion. At the very end,
where they talk about feeling the ring of fire, I felt it all the way down to
the soles of my feet. They were in the water, and they were burning. In between
contractions I was alternately shaking, hyperventilating, whimpering and
crying, and when each one started I was pleading and panicking to escape it. I
felt trapped, cornered, outmanned and outgunned, and I didn’t have anywhere
near enough time between them to gather myself and try to meet the next one.
Cindy told me later that they were sometimes only 30 seconds apart. Labor
started with my water breaking, and even then they were 2 minutes apart. It is
unusual for them to be so close, especially for a first-timer; it’s very likely
that you will have more breathing time.
After transition they did slow down, so much so
that I kept falling asleep for a minute or two between them, was even having
short snippet dreams, and I remember as each one pulled me back into reality I
kept hoping against hope that the dreams were real and the contractions were a
nightmare.
I was talking with M. about it, and she reminded
me that even Jesus, before his Crucifixion, was in agony over what was to come,
that even he begged and pleaded and prayed that he wouldn’t have to do it. It
was really helpful for me to be reminded of that. One of the things that I’ve
had a hard time with since the birth is looking back and feeling like I didn’t
handle it well. I yelled and threw an ice pack across the room at one point
because I was so mad at the whole damn thing, and I was hoarse for days
afterwards because I bellowed and screamed so much. I felt like I didn’t do
well with it at all, that I was a coward and honestly kind of a p**** about the
whole process. Remembering the whimpering, panicking and wanting to hide is
especially, well, shameful. But even Jesus himself didn’t want to do it. He
gave up his Body, asking for a way out, though he did it anyway. And I didn’t
really have a choice, and I couldn’t have gone back, and maybe my body was
taken, not given, but at the end of the day it wasn’t mine and neither was his.
Body and Blood painfully, atrociously surrendered, all for the good of another
who has no conception of the astounding and terrific depths of the sacrifice
made for them.
You want to know
what went through my head when I held her for the first time? Never again.
Never, never, ever in a million years will I ever do this again. And then, yes,
I was mad again, super angry in my exhaustion, because the whole world had lied
to me. It wasn’t worth it, and they were all hateful, idiotic, cruel deceivers.
But, the thing is .
. . I can’t even describe to you how much I love her now. I look at her
and want to eat her, hug her so tightly it hurts, and sometimes I start crying
because she’s so beautiful. I could—and do—stare at her face for hours,
learning her character, watching her learn the world around her, seeing Jamey
and my siblings flitting across her face as she makes her crazy expressions. I
have discovered that I don’t mind getting poop on me (at least, not much),
because I’m so proud of her for accomplishing it, as it’s such an undertaking
for her little person. A lot of the time I don’t mind getting up in the night
for her, and I love it when she wakes up in the morning, because the first
thing she does is coo and smile and wave her arms to show how much she loves
us.
Everything is so intense. The stakes are just
way higher than I ever thought they could be, but because we have to get on
with life we sort of get used to it and move right along. Every couple days or
so, or maybe a couple times every day if it’s that sort of week, the enormity
of it all, good or bad and oftentimes both tangled up together, comes roaring
through the surface and leaves you crying and overwhelmed and astounded. People
say you forget, once the baby is born, the difficulties of labor and pregnancy.
I have not found that to be the case, but I do feel like I have two overflowing
glasses now. The intensity of the joy and wonder at my daughter, whose very
existence I resented and wanted to run away from, has risen up so high that
it’s met the tribulations head-on. I’m still not able to say, yes, it’s worth
it, with full confidence. But what I can say is that this little girl makes me
happier than I ever thought I could be, and I think I do want to have another
one. Just not anytime soon!
I don’t really have much to add to all that, expect to
say that I’ve never before come close to being able to empathize with Jesus.
And not to say that I can do so now; but, I have scaled a foothill that I
thought was The Mountain, and now I feel like, from far away and at the very
bottom, I suddenly have some nebulous notion of the magnanimity of something I
didn’t even know existed. Some people offer each contraction in labor for a
different person, an individual need, a special intention. I admire them
immensely for it, and have to say that I have no concept of how that is even
possible. There were two moments in particular where events occurred that made
the pain tear through me in a roar; during one of them my arms were stretched
out on either side of me, fingers stretched in an effort to not tense them into
fists, and my head was thrown back. And though the words did not form in my
head, there was only one image I knew: Eloi,
Eloi, lama sabacthani? And, all at once, Calvary has become personal.
The second thing I want to talk about is trying to feed
Sonya, which I hope is a far more straightforward illumination of the
Eucharist. Something I’ve talked about somewhere before (I don’t remember
where; don’t ask!) is that prayer the priest offers in between receiving the
Body and receiving the Blood of Christ. What
return shall I make to the Lord for all He has given to me? I shall take the
Chalice of Salvation. How do we thank God for giving us one enormous huge
out-of-this-world gift? Well, by taking another one, as often as it’s offered,
as often as we can! He wants to feed and nourish us with his own person, just
as a mother feeds her baby; he wants that personal, physical, intimate
connection, and the best way to show him we’re grateful for it is to keep
coming back for more.
Sonya didn’t take to breastfeeding, to put it mildly. She
couldn’t at all when she was born, like, physically was not able to, because
her poor little tongue was tied all the way down to the very tip. She couldn’t
lift it even the least little bit, which meant she couldn’t get any milk from
me, and also that she couldn’t “tell me” that she needed milk, which meant I
never made enough for her. So we fed her with syringes and tiny little tubes
and bottles and supplemental nursing systems and snuggles and galactogogues and
shields and formula and pumps and frustration and tears (from her and us) and
determination and confusion. Every single time I tried to feed her without any
of the training wheels, she would choke and cough and spit on me, making faces
like she was tasting something sour and bitter, and would invariably start
screaming.
Finally, after almost 12 weeks of the struggle, Jamey and
I were talking over the pros and cons of continuing to try to breastfeed, and
we just didn’t know what to do. So we said, let’s pray about it, and hope that
it comes clear. Two days later, I sat down to feed her, and she would. not.
eat. I tried to breastfeed her three more times that day, and again the next
several days; she made it clear that she was absolutely done with me and it.
And, happening when it did, it was so clearly the answer to our prayers, and
our life is so much more sane with bottles and formula, but oh the rejection. I
was literally bruised, bleeding and lacerated for her, crying for her to
accept. And she still didn’t want me. Here,
Sonya! Here is my body! I’m giving it to you! Eat! Drink! And instead she
coughed and spat and beat me with her little fists, with no conception of what
she was rejecting or how much anguish she was causing.
What is that, what does that mean, if not the most clear
illustration of what Jesus offers to us, and what we have given him in return? How
can we recover, make it better, try to fix what we’ve broken in ourselves and
heal the hurt we’ve given him? All we have to do is say yes and accept the help
he wants to give us along the way. We can’t scale The Mountain without Lembas.
As always, I’m here if you want to talk.
