The Miracle of Birth: A Mother’s Emotional Journey Through Pain, Faith, and New Life

Nine, ten, eleven… midnight… and on and on, until four-thirty in the morning, I watched the clock’s hand cough its way forward. My time no longer had time. The world continued as usual — and that is precisely why he was born on Shabbat, when the world pauses and clocks don’t exist.

A Birth Plan for Everything — Except God’s Plan

I was ready for everything. Like everything in my life, I managed this pregnancy with a firm hand, armed with the best books for every possible scenario — except for the one planned by the Holy One, blessed be He.

I crafted a master-level birth plan, one even the Pentagon wouldn’t be ashamed of. Everything was precisely timed and divided: what goes to the delivery room, what to the nursery, and what to recovery. And then, once again, Hashem appeared to remind me that I am only a guest here, walking through His landscape. All the research on birth procedures, vaccines, tests in the nursery — they all “went to update the trash,” as my father and teacher loves to sing.

“But afterward, none of it matters,” they told me. And they were right. When your hands are full, all the suffering — however hellish it was, goes out with the leftover Bamba wrappers.

As someone who makes a living from words, I suddenly became orphaned from letters.

His First Look

He was born and immediately looked at me. He opened just enough to blink a pair of gleaming eyes. Fresh, warm purity — straight from an angelic oven. No introductions necessary. I gathered strength and whispered every blessing I could remember. “What a welcome…” he probably thought, my tiny little tzaddik.

There Is No Such Thing as an Easy Birth

I don’t think there exists a woman in the world who gives birth and does not understand, on some human level, that birth itself is the answer — and therefore there is no such thing as an “easy birth.”

Birth is the most delicate and mysterious wisdom that Hashem granted us.

Think about this: in my lap sat a small man. A real man. Not a toy doll you buy for a niece. My little man — and every mother’s little man contains everything.

He contains Hashem Himself, who breathed into him a pure, sweet Jewish soul. And I, a creator in His world, cannot digest it. Cannot comprehend how the privilege fell to me — that someone will someday call me by the most beautiful name in existence: Mama.

How can one even ask for an easy birth when she is partnering with God to create a living, breathing human being?

Why Was I Expecting Ease?

You endure nine months — minute by minute, hour by hour, of ongoing torment, and then you’re certain the “easy birth” reward will arrive. But birth does not work like that. It is one long chase — exhausting, draining, agonizing beyond words, toward that awaited cry.

How did I dare wish for it to come easily? Bringing a soul into the world is not like walking into a store with a grocery list and walking out with a brand-new baby in a bag.

And suppose we could remember every detail creation must bring at birth — ten fingers, liver, kidneys, muscles, joints, arteries, veins, millions of capillaries. Would we also request the suffering? Would we ask for three sleepless months of gas pains just so his digestive system works properly? For the sneeze that signals he’s cold? For the burp he must learn? For the cry needed to shape his laughter?

All this is part of a finished creation too miraculous to grasp. Birth revealed teshuva to me anew — it is a wonder from another world.

The Miracle We Take for Granted

Reading what I wrote, I tremble at how frightening it is that we take for granted the merging of body and soul into a functional human being. True, we thank Hashem for everything — but can we truly expect such a miracle to come easily?

Even if we listed everything a human needs to function perfectly… birth brings LIFE. Someone will marvel at a flower because of you. Someone will enter the covenant of Avraham because of you. His smile, his Torah, his kindness — all because of your sleepless nights and your mothering.

A small person will grow great. He will cross a street alone, talk on the phone, wait in line at a store, hug his sister, sing in the bath, prepare his bed for Shabbat, honor his wife.

And understand this: there will be someone in this world who loves Hashem — because of you.

That cannot come easily. It is bought with blood, sweat, tears, and endless prayers.

Motherhood: The Love That Compensates for Everything

So I pass through more milestones: the brit milah, the pidyon haben, the first vaccination — days without rest. As my holy grandmother used to say: “Only may he grow and flourish.”

I cannot believe that I am holding him while simultaneously missing him. A love that compensates for everything.

I remembered how Liat, my closest friend, once said she sometimes wished she could return her baby to her womb — back to being part of her physical body — from sheer, overwhelming love. I didn’t understand her then. But when I held my own son, Binyamin David, I finally did.

Becoming a Mother: A New Identity

Liat and I walked our teshuva journeys almost in parallel. My treasure was born four months after hers. The last time I visited her before my birth, I paused to truly see her. Since witnessing her delivery, she had transformed. From a woman, wife, and rare friend — she had become a mother.

I didn’t need words. I stood over her baby’s swing and prayed. Proud of her, and hoping my own child would one day take pride in me.

A Lesson in Happiness

Passing the resting place of the Shelah HaKadosh, I recalled standing there a year earlier, confessing my fear and longing to be a good mother.

When I asked a mutual friend, “How is Liat surviving? How does she know she’s good to him and he to her?” she explained: Happiness is a straight line — not highs and lows. If so, we must be grateful for every ordinary moment we are given to live inside. A pattern of miracles woven into miracles.

The Daily “Easy Birth” I Never Expected

After two months of not touching this journal, I close it now at 5:20 a.m. as my little tzaddik stirs, half asleep, searching to grow, to be nourished, and to be close to me.

I am beginning to understand: the ease and naturalness with which I approach him is a birth of its own. A daily easy birth. A birth of renewed strength. A birth that leads to the perfect bond between mother and son.

And this — this — is the easiest and most beautiful birth Hashem grants to every mother.

Surprisingly, this was the one “easy birth” missing from my list.

Dedicated to all mothers everywhere, and especially to my extraordinary mother, Dina bat Yulia Julie and Yaakov, without whom I would never have received the greatest gift in the world:
to live, to bring life, and to be called “Mama.”