Symbiotic Motherhood

I am a mother and my daughter, Eleanor, is three months old. The first pregnancy test I ever took was Ellie’s. Two bold lines announcing I was pregnant with her. Needless to say, this whole parenting thing is new to me. It is all new.

Despite watching my siblings become parents, as well as greedily taking notes during prenatal class, motherhood itself has been a complete surprise. You see, I have never loved like this before. Until Ellie, I had never loved someone with my whole body. To Ellie, my body is her’s. My womb was her’s, my breast is her’s. I can’t help but wonder if this is the highest form of love? The sharing of bodies. And if this is true, I can’t help but think of Christ giving His own body for us. I might be onto something here, or maybe I’m just really tired.

During those early pregnancy weeks, I began to share my body with Ellie in the most gentle of ways. I took morning supplements and changed what I ate and drank. I lay still waiting to feel her move or kick. I felt nauseous and doctors scanned my stomach. Every night I pressed my skin to try and feel the slightest bump begin to grow.

During those later pregnancy weeks, sharing my body with Ellie was not so gentle. She grew and kicked and swooshed and hiccuped. My skin stretched and itched. Laying flat, I got dizzy with her body weighing heavy on mine. I felt breathless with compressed lungs. I tasted bile with my stomach squished north. My bladder was heavy and tired. There were blood tests, urine samples and internal and external ultrasounds (who knew internal scans existed?).

During labour, sharing my body with Ellie was not gentle at all. My muscles seized and contracted to persuade her downwards. My waters broke. I stopped eating (as recommended) and distracted myself from the pain. I vomited. I pushed. I tore. I opened. Once Ellie was born, her umbilical cord still attached her to my body. She lay naked on my bare chest and panted, experiencing the world for the first time.

Now that Ellie is born, I continue to share my body with her. In the most beautiful symbiotic dance, when I breastfeed Ellie her small belly inflates as my full breast empties. She gets a little heavier and I get a little lighter. My body now boasts of motherhood, with a fleshier stomach and tireder eyes. Small stretch marks wiggle as my body changes to meet Ellie’s needs. At times, I forgo my sleep so that I can help Ellie sleep. My sleeplessness becomes her rest.

I have never known anything like being a mother, but I have known love like this before. I think of Christ. The evening before Jesus was crucified, He tore bread. He explained to His disciples that His body would soon be torn and broken, just like that bread. Later, Jesus was kissed, seized, beaten, spat at, struck, pierced and hung on a cross. Jesus asked His disciples to remember how He gave His body for them; how He gave His body for us all (Luke 22:19). I believe Jesus is the Son of God, equal to God and entitled to rule. Yet Jesus “emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, He humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross,” (Philippians 2:7b-8). 

To me, this is the greatest love: the sharing and giving one’s body for the sake of another. As I watch Ellie learn and grow, I am filled with love and would give her more of myself if I could. I would do it all again. This makes me wonder where all this great love has come from, and I realise that this love isn’t mine. It stems from Christ. We love because He first loved us (1 John 4:19), in the greatest possible way. Thanks be to God.