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Waiting for birth

Janet Plenert

Waiting. It seems I’ve been waiting for so long, and the baby still is a couple of months away. But this time will come to an end, and the new little life that is kicking within me will appear. I remember the uncertainty of waiting with my first child, and the time I have spent wondering what this child will be like. Will it be healthy? How well will I cope if it isn’t? Is it a boy or another girl? How will we all adjust to a bigger family?

New life within

Sometimes I’ve thought of Mary and the waiting she was called to do. How many more questions she must have had. How patient and strong she must have been. She was called to receive God’s seed. She felt it growing deep within her, consuming her energy and changing who she was. I don’t think any woman can undergo pregnancy and childbirth and remain unchanged, but for Mary it must have been even more transforming.

Mary was waiting to give birth to the life that God had planted within her. I, too, have been chosen by God to accept into myself the seed that God wishes to plant. Not the seed of my child that is growing, but God’s Word. When I respond willingly to God, a time of waiting begins, not unlike that of pregnancy. At the beginning, it seems unbelievable that there is new life growing within. There are fears that the pregnancy will not come to its fullness, but there is also the overwhelming mystery of it all, the excitement of the future life.

The middle part of pregnancy is a time of acceptance of what is to come. The hidden presence begins to become visible, and the magic moment arrives when I feel the movement unlike any other – there is something alive, with its own will and spirit, living in the dark recesses of my body.

Nearer to the time of birth, the definition of who I am is focused on the round bulge protruding from me. There is a sure knowledge of a presence within, inescapable, always with me, like the presence of God. Sometimes during each pregnancy I have wanted to forget, to pretend it wasn’t there. I’ve eaten poorly, or told myself I don’t need a nap. It is the same way with the presence of God moving within me. I get impatient waiting to see what life God wants to bring forth from me, and I pretend for a while that the presence is gone. Jonah did the same thing, but he had no more success running from God than I have had. I don’t get weekends off from being pregnant, and God doesn’t give time off either.

Pain and struggle

Waiting isn’t always fun, or easy. Although I usually think of waiting as passive, this is definitely an active waiting. It consumes a surprising amount of energy to nurture new life. My whole routine has had to change. I want different foods and more of them. I nap and write off afternoon activities. My immunities are low, and I never know when I will be too exhausted to get anything done. It is difficult to concentrate because the presence hidden within me moves or I get hungry.

Bringing life into the world, be it my child or the life God is growing in me, has pain and struggle, too. I have learned that I simply cannot bring forth life of any kind without a deep giving of myself. Mary must have known that. The Christmas story we tell about her is so sweet and gentle, but she must have faced immense persecution, shame and disgrace. Perhaps that is one of the reasons she spent three months in safety with her cousin Elizabeth. The suffering she endured for the sake of God’s seed within her is not a part of the story we usually tell, but isn’t it part of the story of every pregnant woman, of all persons who have permitted God to be present within them? One cannot bring forth life without waiting, wondering and struggling.

Change

I can’t help thinking about my sisters, the women of Zaire, and how their identity is linked to their ability to bring forth fruit from their wombs. The striking difference, though, is after the birth. To my North American friends, my name remained Janet even after my first child, Gabrielle, was born, but to my Zairian sisters I was Mua Muanjelo – Mother of Gabrielle. I wonder if God recognizes us all mainly by the fruit we bear in God’s name?

I have waited through two other pregnancies and have given birth to two children. I marvel at how naive I have been in expecting one pregnancy to be like another, and to be able to treat one child like another. The first pregnancy was a wonderful experience, and I bore a happy, healthy child. The second pregnancy was one of the most emotionally unstable and miserable periods of my life. My second daughter was very sick and required emergency care for a couple weeks, and extraordinary patience until her second birthday. They are so different, yet both the fruit of the same womb, both lives I have nurtured and waited for. God plants new life within me over and over again, and each time is a different experience, and the fruit which comes to be born is necessarily different, too. Waiting for birth, I never know how I will be challenged and moulded as a person. All I know is that I will be changed, and that I am required to give of myself for each birth. Each time I open myself to God, I become vulnerable, vulnerable to the uncertainty of what lies ahead, vulnerable to the changes I will have to allow in myself, vulnerable to the pain that may be required of me. The waiting is not easy, but the fruit is worth it.

Janet Plenert is joint Latin American administrator for Commission on Overseas Mission/Mennonite Board of Missions of Mennonite Church USA. This article is based on a chapel message presented at Associated Mennonite Biblical Seminary in Elkhart, Ill. in 1992. Janet and her husband Steve have three daughters.

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Last modified December 6, 2000.

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