Ever since I can remember, I have loved childbirth. I remember sitting on the floor in my family room watching TLC's "Baby Story" for hours, watching labor after labor unfold. I was completely enraptured. Throughout high school and college I knew I wanted to work in labor and delivery. I wanted to bring life into the world. Obstetrics rotation in nursing school finally came around and I could barely contain my excitement. The day finally arrived, and in a room down the hall of a small hospital, a mother began to feel the pains of impending labor.

The mother lays on the bed, panting with contractions, holding the father's or her mother's hand. She rests in between labored breaths and sweat glistens her brow. Her husband whispers words of encouragement into her ear and gently strokes her forehead. Thirty seconds letter she is squeezing his hand and yelling at him, "You did this to me!" He patiently pats her hand, endures the crushed hand, and encourages her through it all. Another contraction comes. Her eyes are wide open, but she doesn't see what's in front of her. Her body is completely focused on the task at hand. Her baby is coming, that is her entire world in this moment. She moans, grunts, but doesn't scream. Her body tenses and rolls with the energy flowing within her. This is what her body is capable of. After 9 months of organs shifting, bones moving, and hormones raging, this is the pinnacle of it all. This is all her. She is the only one capable of bringing this baby in to the world. The doctors can prove, the nurses can encourage, the mothers can massage, but in the end, the only thing between her and the end is her own body. With strength that comes from who knows where after 16 hours of labor, she pushes to bring forth her child. Again and again, fully focused, she pushes and pushes while everyone in the room cheers her on. I hold back her leg and watch as this new life slides into the arms of the waiting doctor. The look of her face as we hold up the crying baby is almost indescribable. You can feel the bond that is forming, the unconditional love that she feels for that baby. Immediately, everyone can sense the world shift. No longer is her life about herself, it is about this helpless creature resting on her chest. Her husband watches intently as we bathe the squirming infant. You can see the realization on his face, he too senses the shift. He would do anything for this new human that he has known for only seconds. He locks eyes with his wife, and you can tangibly feel the love and support. The incredible and overwhelming knowledge that this baby is the product of their love, that they created something new together. They have become one flesh, combined in a new way, into a new life. There is not a dry eye in the room. I bawl while a huge grin is locked on my face. I felt a prayer flow from my heart of thanksgiving and protection over this baby girl. I held the baby as the dad took her first pictures. Those photos, with my scrub sleeves wrapped around her tiny body, will be put into baby books and shown to relatives. I am now a part of her story. it is in a small way, but one that I felt deeply. I was so incredibly honored to be part of that moment. In those last few minutes, I had never felt so much raw emotion and just...pride.

I felt so proud to be a woman in a way that I never appreciated before. This is something that no one else can do. This is the one thing, that no amount of trying can a man do. Our bodies are so beautifully strong, while simultaneously soft and vulnerable. We invite life into bodies and they end up entering our souls, changing us forevermore into "mother." I really can't describe how it felt, but I knew that I just witnessed something sacred.

Throughout that year, I had debated if I actually wanted to have children of my own. I believed I just wanted to adopt. My heart was so broken for broken(try using a different word here) and abandoned children that I couldn't imagine wanting to bring someone new into the world when I could open my heart to someone already here and unloved. But in those sacred moments, those intimate moments I saw exchanged between husband and wife, mother and baby, father and baby, I knew I wanted to experience that. To this day I am l overwhelmed with the privilege it is to give birth to a baby. God could have allowed children to be brought to us by a stork, creating them on His own, and giving us them to raise. But He didn't. He has allowed us to play a crucial part in creating life. Just as we invite these little lives into our bodies and souls, He invites us into the intimate love cycle of his soul. The Creator takes our hands, and allows us to touch the clay, to mold it to our hands, leaving our prints on its form. We not only caretake, (I'm not sure what you're trying to say here)we create. How incredibly beautiful.

I believed that that was going to be the last time I cried during a birth, that I was just overwhelmed by my first experience. I assisted over 5 more births and I still cried every time. I'm not sure if I will ever get over the beauty of it all. Every birth I feel a prayer pour from my lips, thanking God for allowing me to witness creation, and praying for the life of this baby. Even if I end up being unable to give birth to some of my children, just being able to experience it through someone else has changed me.