Through Childbearing...

I'm fairly certain that I'm treading out onto thin ice by beginning my postpartum post with  1 Timothy 2:15: "For she [i.e., woman] will be saved through childbearing--if they continue in faith and love and holiness, with self-control." After all, this verse has given some ammunition to those who accuse the church in general, and St. Paul in particular, of "reducing" women to the status of baby-makers or even mere incubators! Together with the veneration of Mary for her role as Theotokos (God-bearer), the biblical link between a woman's salvation and her role as birth-giver has been infuriating women for decades certainly, and possibly for centuries. Even aside from the difficulties a feminist might have with this verse, there's the obvious Protestant objection that such a verse might lead women to believe they can be saved by the work of bearing children. So I ask you to bear with me, in faith that I'm not a misogynist or a neo-Pelagian, just a Christian mama trying to make sense of scripture in the light of tradition, and my own experience giving birth.

Without actually knowing the tradition of this verse's interpretation, I'm going to guess that some have tried to explain its hardness away by claiming that the salvific childbearing in question is Mary's, and that Paul is doing nothing more than pointing to Christ as the saviour in a slightly convoluted way. I don't buy it. Certainly, Paul could be deliberately contextualizing all birth-giving within Mary's archetypal God-bearing, but he is certainly also referring to the childbearing of particular women and its role in their own salvation. After all, Paul makes his claim that "she will be saved by childbearing" in the midst of more general (and arguably inflammatory) instructions to women about how they should dress (modestly) and how they should relate to men (submissively). 

The issues of women's clothing and female authority are large ones in and of themselves, so I'm going to bracket them for now. Rather than looking at the restrictions that Paul would place on women's dress and behaviour (the paths of ostentatiousness and power-seeking that we should avoid), I'd like to keep the focus on his more positive claim about childbirth (the path wherein we, as mothers, should walk.) What then does it mean for the Christian mother to be saved by childbearing?

In thinking about this, I can't help but recall my own experiences giving birth to Katherine and Naomi, as well as my week-old experience of birthing my son Isaiah. Each of these has had for me, hidden within it, a kind of precept or truth about the spiritual life. With Katie, it was the miracle of God's power to preserve human life. During the 42 hours I laboured with her, the thought occurred to me over and over: "I am going to die." Or, more urgently as I approached the end "I am dying!" And always the anxiety that my baby would die too and it would all be for nothing. But throughout, God held us both and did not take us back to Himself, keeping us here in the world with the people who love us and (for now) need us.

With Naomi, it was the miracle of the Resurrection. Whereas Katie's labour had been a mere brush with death, in birthing Naomi I did die. Not physically--my heart never stopped. But on a deeper level, on the plane where time is meaningless (as it is in labour), where the space between heartbeats contains an eternity of little moments. On that level, the "I" stopped being. I can remember the midwife saying "We've got a cord! DON'T PUSH!" once I had birthed Naomi's head. I remember struggling against my body's urge to push, trying to hold the baby within myself and the feeling of being rent in two. And then a terrifying nothingness, stretching into eternity. And then God brought me back to life with the cry of my little one. What was that moment of nothingness? I've since watched the recorded video of the birth, and discovered the strangest thing. I was not, as I had supposed, unconscious during this moment. Rather, I am speaking. Whispering, actually. And the words on my lips: "Jesus, save me."

With Naomi I also learned a little bit about synergy--the cooperation of God and man (or, in this case, woman). Whereas with Katie, I never felt an urge to push (I pushed only because I had reached full dilation and hospital staff told me to), with Naomi my body more or less ejected the baby and all I had to do was cooperate with it. I learned that I am, indeed, "fearfully and wonderfully made," and that rather than fighting each contraction and experiencing horrible pain, I could "cooperate" with each contraction, assent to it almost, thereby experiencing minimal pain and progressing so much more quickly than I had with Katie. The spiritual life is no different: try to do it all on your own steam and you have a whole lot of toil with little or no progress. But step out of the way, make your sole goal that of the Baptist's (i.e., to "decrease"), and God will complete the good work begun in you.

And what have I learned from Isaiah? It is still rather early to know, but God certainly further deepened my understanding of synergy. If I died involuntarily with Naomi, I gave myself over to God in birthing Isaiah. And yet, paradoxically, I worked so much harder! I'd figured that my third baby would be easier than my second, as my second was easier than my first. But not only was he posterior for much of the labour (thank God, he finally turned!), he was a hearty 9lbs, with a 14-inch head, and the little guy tried to come out sucking his thumb! All of this made for a really intense pushing stage. I'm told that veins popped out in my neck and forehead, and I certainly have the petechiae to prove it!

But I have a secret. That last push, the one that got him out? I didn't do it. At that moment, I was too busy giving my body over to God, to do with it what He would. Several times during pushing I cried out in terror, "God, HELP ME!" not because I was afraid of dying this time, but because the pain was nearly unbearable. And it was with my doula's words in my ear "God is helping you push this baby out," and finally with the complete relinquishing of my body to God that Isaiah finally came into the world.

So am I being saved through childbearing? If so, it is not because of what I am doing in birthing the children that God has given me, but because of what He is able to teach me in this most holy work. And lest I think the work is now done, there is the rest of the verse to contend with: "...if they continue in faith and love and holiness, with self-control." May God give me the grace and self-control I need to bring up my children in faith and love and holiness.

Making Room...

So, growing a baby is hard work, folks. I wish I could say it wasn't, but I've found myself a little tapped-out energy-wise, lately. I keep having ideas for posts (rants, mostly, so you should be happy to be spared!), but the execution is a little trickier. By the time the day is over, I mostly just want to collapse. Although, yesterday evening, rather than collapsing, I participated in a maternity photo shoot, which was incredibly rewarding. (Because what 8-months-pregnant gal doesn't need an ego boost as far as body image is concerned?!)

Seeing the photos reminds me that to be the bearer of new life is an honour--and a beautiful one at that! To think of the pregnant body--mine or another's--in terms of its power and its beauty can sometimes seem strange in our stick-thin-is-in culture. And yet hymns to the Theotokos which, in some translations, praise her for having "hips more spacious than the heavens," remind us of the pure beauty of one's body making room for another, and the unique joy given to women by our Creator.

Picking off the Vegetables

So I recently realized that what I mistook for piety in my two-year-old was really a combination of common sense and the desire not to burn her tongue. (I should have guessed as much: this is the child who piped up "I don't like church.  Mama, I don't LIKE CHURCH"--during the Cherubic Hymn, no less.) Naomi has for the longest time been my little prayer conscience: "Time to pray, Mama! Time to pray!" she would exclaim as I set the food on the table. Only now do I realize that she only says this when I tell them "Careful: it's hot!" "Time to pray," for Naomi, may amount to nothing more than a way to delay the beginning of the meal, a distraction to keep her from diving in too soon so that her food might cool down to a reasonable temperature in the meantime.


Another recent mealtime trend in our household is the picking off of the vegetables. I used to have children who would eat anything, anything I put in front of them: broccoli, kale, squash, sweet potato, tomatoes, carrots, corn, cauliflower, peas, etc. You grew it, they ate it! Do 3-year-olds come with a manual for driving their mothers crazy??? Katie has recently declared war on several (fortunately not all!) vegetables, and Naomi is quickly following suit, thanks to the example of her cool older sister. This is a problem in our household. A serious problem. Take tonight's meal:

 That's mushrooms, red pepper, green zebra tomatoes, onion and Swiss chard. The crust and cheese are really just a delivery system in my books; pizza's not pizza without the veggies! Katie sat in front of her pizza for nearly twenty minutes, diligently denuding the piece of my masterpiece that I had placed before her until it was deemed vegetable-free and passed inspection.


Now I realize this is small potatoes. In some ways I know that I've already lost the food battle, because when our kids are teenagers, you bet I'll be stocking the pantry with junkfood to ensure that our place becomes the hangout spot of choice! And by that time, I'll have a thirteen-year-old Naomi who can not only tell me "I don't LIKE church," but who can also refuse to get out of bed on Sunday morning, refuse to put on clothing, and refuse to get in the car (or on her bike, or whatever.) This thought terrifies me.


It's not that I want little carbon copies of myself, or that my children have to absorb each and every one of my values. It's just that some of what we do as a family--pray together, worship together--is so very important to me that I would be heartbroken if their came a time when we no longer shared that. As I see it, the Eucharistic Liturgy is the very foundation of spiritual health. And I realize that, just as we do for vegetables, we can lose our taste for church (though perhaps on a slightly different timeline.) Perhaps our spiritual senses become duller as we encounter the world in all of its flashiness. Perhaps we lose our way through woundedness. Whatever the cause, once off the road it can be immensely difficult to find one's way back.


Today, I am humbled by the immense privilege and responsibility that is child-rearing. I am so very thankful for the children that have been given me, and it is with fear and trembling that I anticipate holding and releasing their hands as they meet the challenges of daily living.

Dr.'s Orders...

Well we had a full day. First the "butterflies with paint," which turned out quite well, despite my initial reluctance. Here's Katie's: 

Then, a meeting with an inner-city ministry leader, to organize the "Youth and Sports" section of the program. (I vaguely remember writing my name on a piece of paper with that heading at a training event for this ministry because it was the closest thing to something that fit my interests and talents, and now find myself heading up this section of the program. What on earth do I know about youth and sports?!)

Next, a failed nap attempt. They both fell asleep in the car on the way home. At 11:30. Go figure. Needless to say, neither one made the transfer to their beds. AAAARGH! I would have just left them there and leaned my seat back for a little shut-eye myself, had it not been that I really, really had to pee. (Despite the gallon of cranberry juice, diluted and sweetened with stevia so I could choke the stuff down, the UTI was only worsening.) So, after a quick visit with a friend to try to reclaim my sanity, I headed off to the doctor's office to confirm what my body has been telling me the past couple of days.


Reading over my antibiotic information, I was reminded of a pet peeve of mine that I thought would be appropriate to share in this forum. Namely, the following instructions: "This medication passes into breast milk and may have undesirable effects on nursing infants younger than 1 month old. Consult your doctor before breastfeeding" (found on the drug pamphlet) and "Warning: breastfeeding not recommended while taking this drug. Consult your doctor or pharmacist" (found on the pill bottle). At first glance, these instructions might seem fairly innocuous. After all, everyone knows that some drugs aren't safe to take while nursing a baby, right? And nobody wants to harm their infant inadvertently by breastfeeding while taking a drug that would be dangerous to their baby's health. Now, never mind that it didn't occur to my doc that I might still be nursing my toddler (as I am) and that he didn't feel it was important to reassure me that it's fine to nurse her and take these drugs because she's old enough that they don't pose a threat to her (which they don't). What troubles me about the warning labels on these meds (and on any that are not deemed compatible with nursing by the medical community--I've read several of these kinds of labels) is the implicit assumption that if it's a choice between breastfeeding and taking medication, then breastfeeding is clearly out. These kinds of assumptions drive me crazy, especially when you consider the horror stories some women live through in order to be able to nurse their babies--everything from latch problems to severe mastitis. Women often initially sacrifice comfort, time, energy and sleep in order to cultivate healthy nursing relationships with their children. Where does the medical community get off thinking we're just going to toss that all away in order to cure some ailment?

I'd like to see a label that reads: "This drug may not be safe to use while breastfeeding. If you are breastfeeding, see you doctor for an alternative medication." There. That wasn't so hard, was it? And if there's no alternative, well lets work to find one. And in the meantime, let the woman in question decide which she wants to give up, rather than treating breastfeeding as the expendable item on the table.

Fall

As I sit here at our kitchen table in the dark, watching my early rising almost-4-year-old munching on her cereal and feel the cool--no, cold--air drifting in from the open window, I realize that fall is here.

We've had a great summer, a somewhat carefree summer, but now it's over and it's time to buckle down and get into some kind of sensible routine. (The munching has ceased, so I now have her sorting the different cereal grains into separate piles--there are 7--to buy me a little more time!)


September, for me, has always seemed more like the beginning of a New Year than January and knowing that it is the beginning of the Church Year, gives me a strange mixture of anticipation and dread...apprehension. That's what it's called!


On the one hand, it's a fresh start. Another chance to understand more fully the power and beauty of the liturgical calendar. Another opportunity to recommit to trying to pray regularly with my children throughout the day. On the other hand, it's time to start all over again. Nothing changes in the liturgical pattern from year to year in the Orthodox church. In fact, not much changes from Sunday to Sunday. Most Wednesdays and Fridays are the same too: cereal and nutmilk for breakfast, hummus wrap for lunch, lentils for supper, and so it goes. And there are problems in the church--age old problems that likely won't change in my lifetime. (This is one reason why I can comfortably list Orthodoxy among my list of "Earthly Cares," ethereal though the liturgy may sometimes be...) Here we go again, I think. ("Again and again, we pray to the Lord." And again. And again. And again...) But wait? What's this about "coming soon"?

A "soon" that lasts 2000 years could seem like someone's idea of a cruel joke. On the other hand, each of our short, short lives bears testimony to that soon. I realize with every week, month and year, that time is just speeding up as I get older. (Maybe that's part of why I started this blog: I want so desperately to slow it down, to capture these little moments that make up the fabric of human life...)


Well, I need to help my daughter "do a butterfly with paint" (you know, as opposed to the crayons I suggested.) So I'm off. Happy New Year, everyone!

Butterfly Raising

So, one Saturday in late July we found an exciting looking caterpillar hanging out in our parsley. At first, I was inclined to let the girls look at it, then put it back from whence it came. But then I remembered how my childhood best friend had raised a monarch butterfly, and how exiting it was as a child to witness it's emergence into the world, post-transformation. I brought it in...

Online, I discovered we had ourselves a Black Swallowtail caterpillar, and that they eat fennel, parsley and dill, all of which we have in abundance in our garden. So I harvested a little of each, and placed it at the bottom of a large glass jar (our cookie jar, so no cookies that week!) with a cheese cloth covering held in place by an elastic band. I also added a stick, for when it decided to cocoon.

I read that I had to clean out the poop daily, and I wasn't really looking forward to this, as the caterpillar was already pooping copious amounts... Fortunately, this was because it was time for it to cocoon! I guess they have to clean out first? Anyhow, not long after the copious pooping, the caterpillar crawled away from its food source and began the strange cocooning dance they do. It was evening by this point, so we watched for a bit, then went to bed.

The next morning, the cocoon was complete. And the waiting began...

I have to say that by the following Saturday, I was starting to get a little stressed, as the butterfly had not yet emerged, and it looked like the cocoon was darkening. Was it dead? Was I a butterfly murderess? What would I tell the girls? Mommy messed with nature and ended up killing it?

The next day, we got up and began preparing for church. As I got the girls their breakfast, I glanced up at the glass jar. When I saw black, I panicked for a second, thinking the cocoon had darkened completely and all was lost. But no: it was the newly emerged butterfly, crawling out from its "tomb" to greet the world on Sunday morning...

How to Plan a Family Bike Adventure

Despite the looks of horror that I got from people when I told them what we were doing, the family bike trip we took in August went really well. It was a five day trip along the Great Allegheny Passage from Pittsburgh to Rockwood and back (about 200 miles), with a little city cycling between Pittsburgh and Homestead.

(We were grateful that my Dad joined us, increasing the adult-to-child ratio! The little girl in the background is a neighbour who desperately wanted to come too!)

We had rain, we had some whining from the kids, but overall it was a good time. Such a good time, in fact, that I thought I'd post some tips that will help you plan and execute your very own family bike adventure. Here they are:

1) Make sure your youngest is about 1 year old (some would say at least). This is for safety's sake. Despite my love of the bicycle, I am willing to give it up for a year or so after the birth of each child. Young babies simply do not have strong enough necks to support the weight of a bicycle helmet on their little heads as you go over bumps and make sharp turns. If you have a really little one, by all means plan. Buy that front-riding bike seat you're dying to try. Pick up some panniers. Look around for some bargain lightweight camping equipment. Just please don't put a little baby on that bike until they are strong enough to handle a bump or (God forbid) a wipe-out!

2) Assess your needs. Are you rough-it types who don't mind sleeping on a camping mattress after a long day on a bike, or would you prefer to fork out the extra dough for a B&B and sleep in a real bed? How many days of cycling do you think you can sustain? Be honest with yourself: what will work for you and your family?

3) Assess your children's needs. How long can they last in the car? Don't anticipate that they'll be happy cycling for much longer than that, especially if they are too little to be doing any pedaling: they get bored. You will need to take frequent breaks, so do some research about the places you'll be passing. Is there an icecream shop? A playground? Also, bring lots and lots of little snacks. They'll need them. You'll need them.

4) Acquire the necessary equipment. Bikes are obvious, but you'll also need spare tubes, chain lube, a small pump, etc. If your children are too little for their own bikes, you'll need a seat of some kind for them too. Trail-a-bikes (also called "tag-alongs") can work for kids who are tall and strong enough to do some of their own pedaling, bike seats are great for the littlest ones, but I don't recommend a bike trailer unless your entire route is paved. The extra wheel and weight back there will really slow you down! Probably the best scenario if you have two little ones is a front-riding seat on each of the adult bikes, with some gear on the back of each bike. That way, the weight is decently distributed. (In our case, I had both girls on my bike, one on a front-riding seat, one on the back, which adds 70lbs to my bike, and Papa had all our gear on the back of his bike, which made his bike pretty unstable.) If you're roughing it, you'll need camping equipment. You'll need some non-perishable food if you don't want to eat out every night, although this can get heavy to carry, so locate the grocery stores on route and try to carry just what you need for the day. You'll need weather appropriate clothing. It was August, but we were glad for the raincoats we brought for the girls, as they got colder just sitting still in the rain than we did cycling in it.

5) Train. Go for lots of weekend day trips before the big event! You'll need muscles you can't get without lots and lots of cycling!

6) Plan a route, then scale it back. Don't overestimate yourselves. I know I can do a sixty mile day with both kids, but on our five day trip, we scaled it back to 40 miles so that we could sustain it for 5 days and so that it would be fun for the kids. Don't try to do more in a day than you've cycled on one of your weekend day trips... If anything, do less!

7) Have a contingency plan. If unforeseen circumstances prevent you from getting to your daily destination of choice, have another, closer location in mind. Even if you plan to camp, know where there's a B&B in case the weather gets downright dangerous.

8) Get out there! Hope you have as much fun as we did. I'd love to hear your stories!

Girls' Bike Trip, May 2011

Here are some pics from our 60 mile day trip from Pittsburgh to Ohiopyle to kick off the May long weekend. The girls and I left just after 7am from our home in Pittsburgh, cycled for a bit, caught a bus to keep us off the worst roads on route to the trail, then cycled from Dusquesne to Ohiopyle along the Great Allegheny Passage! (In May, the trail wasn't yet completed to Homestead; it's still not complete all the way to Pittsburgh, but they're working on it.) Papa picked us up around 6:30, so it was a long day, but well worth it! Highlights included biking over the bridges from Connellsville to Ohiopyle in a gentle rain, with the sunset just beginning. The low point of the day was when I realized we had inadvertently stopped at a completely bee infested playground! (Not the playground featured in the pics--another one.) We were really fortunate to escape without being stung!

Here's us at Connelsville. No pic at Ohiopyle, unfortunately, as the torrential rain had started and we had to get the bike on our car and get to our campsite in Maryland.

Katie missed out on our icecream stop! :( But we didn't tell her, so she'll live...

The railroad theme of this playground is appropriate, given that we were cycling along a trail that used to be a railroad along the Youghiogheny River. There's a functional railroad along the otherside of the river: we heard and saw many, many trains that day!

Why I Am Not a Feminist

So the fact that I feel compelled to include this post is mostly a result of the way in which many people have come to understand intelligent womanhood in general, and intelligent motherhood in particular. More specifically, it stems from the incarnation (in-web-ation?) of both in the "mommyblog." (Slogans like "thinking + motherhood = feminist" come to mind.) Don't get me wrong: I appreciate these women. I am grateful for their spunk, their commitment to natural, gentle parenting, their willingness to question what they see as the prevailing assumptions about gender and (in)equality. But I am also often saddened by the tone taken in such blogs. And a little baffled. I'm an intelligent woman (or so I like to think...) Why can't I relate?


Before I begin to explain why I can't and don't call myself a feminist, I need to come up with a working definition of the word. Yeah, I know: easier said than done. But what exactly is it that I'm refusing to call myself? I'm very much aware that I may get to the end of this post, and still get comments from people insisting that I am, in fact, a feminist, in my own way, etc., etc. (Honestly, this seems about as patronizing to me as it would likely seem to a self-proclaimed atheist or agnostic were I to insist that really, truly, they were a Christian "in their own way." But if you feel the need to do this, PLEASE include some kind of working definition of "feminist," so that we at least know what we are talking about!)


Back in the day, my undergraduate "Feminism and Philosophy" class was defining feminism as the belief that women have been and continue to be systematically, deliberately and seriously discriminated against in various ways. I know self-proclaimed feminists who would take issue with aspects of this definition (deliberate discrimination, for instance), but in general it seems like a pretty good one to me. Maybe another way of saying it is that a feminist believes that women must fight not to get the short end of the stick.


 The first problem I have with this view is that it seems to undervalue the unique joys of being female. In order to think that women are being gypped, I have to look at what women have, compare it to what men have, and come to the conclusion that men have more, women have less. Aside from the near impossibility of such a task, which seems to require a kind of omniscience, there is the problem that such a judgment must have as a presupposition that the particular things that are unique to men or that men tend to have more of are better than those things that are unique to women or that women tend to have in abundance. I look at my children and I think of the unspeakable joy of carrying them, birthing them and nursing them, and I cannot believe this. Another way to explain this is my reaction to popular attitude t-shirts for young girls that say things like "Play like a girl: Beat the boys." I don't want my daughters to believe that "beating the boys" is the standard of excellence. In my mind, a fight like this defeats its own purpose by setting up what boys or men can do as the pinnacle of human achievement, and forgetting that women have their own unique gifts and vocations.

Another problem with such a view, as I see it, is that it is primarily reactionary: we've been harmed, we've been injured, we've been discriminated against, so we must fight back to ensure that it stops happening. I guess from my perspective, fighting back IS the short end of the stick. It takes up too much energy, and keeps us from living. If I'm spending all my time trying to "beat the boys" instead of kicking the ball (or whatnot), I'm missing out on the game. What's to stop us from just living, as women, doing what we do, exercising our wills with whatever freedoms our current position in life offers us? Must we be so quick to jump to those odious comparisons?