When Life Feels Life Labor Pains
I remember labor with both of my children.
The oldest entered the world with textbook contractions: gradually intensifying, peaking, and then subsiding, with a well-deserved break in between.
That was soon forgotten 19 months later when I went into labor with my youngest child. I thought I had childbearing all figured out … until my body decided to do something different.
The youngest son made his grand entrance with what is called “contraction coupling.” This happens when two or more successive contractions occur without the coveted break to separate them. Essentially, the pain intensifies, peaks, and then peaks again without returning to the original baseline.
To say that I was begging for mercy is an understatement. I wanted whatever aid I could get, and I gladly accepted when the nurses injected something into my IV to take the edge off, but by that point, it was time to push.
It was exhausting to say the least! But somehow God managed to get an 8-pound child out of my worn-out body. That little baby has now morphed into a tween, but sometimes I still reflect on the contraction coupling I endured.
Here comes another one, I remember thinking. My body tensed up with anxiety. I held my breath in anticipation of the inevitable pain and gripped the hospital bed railings in an attempt to brace myself.
Sometimes I feel like this in life too. Bad news has a similar effect on me. I learn of one traumatic event — a shooting, a war, a crime, a natural disaster — and then my body reacts. I tense up, hold my breath, feel anxious, and attempt to brace myself for the next bad report I hear. Bad news seems to be coming more and more frequently. Before I have a chance to recover, there is another occurrence of equal or greater concern.
