Photo Credit: Kelvin Bulluck
I remember being pregnant with Zora and crying in a church pew as a woman nearby congratulated me and told me not to be ashamed bc I was the salt of the earth. While I think she assumed I was experiencing shame (and she was mislead in that assumption), her comfort in that moment meant everything. I felt seen in my hurt… at church… a place often known for vilifying unwed mothers.
Because my future with Zora’s father was uncertain and left me feeling deeply insecure, I spent the majority of her pregnancy battling immense sadness. I wasn’t ashamed to be pregnant. I was simply unsure of what type of family structure I’d be bringing her into and fearful that trying to maintain it would amount to my detriment.
The turmoil of our relationship seemed to overshadow the excitement I felt about becoming a mother. Truth be told, the grief I experienced during that time is one of the reasons I waited so long before having another baby. I needed to acknowledge and release the shame I felt regarding the amount of sadness I nursed while carrying such a joyful child. The ways I worried that her womb experience would somehow impact her general disposition for the worst.
Having aborted previous pregnancies due to familial expectations or uninvested fathers, I wanted to experience a pregnancy where I felt grounded and undoubtedly sure about the union I was bringing a new life into. It took nearly seven years for me to fully accept and feel as if I existed within an emotionally safe environment, and then I experienced a miscarriage.
Despite feeling rooted in my relationship, losing that child meant that (in this pregnancy) I didn’t stop checking the toilet for blood until I was in my third trimester. Feeling unable to trust my own body, that distrust sometimes made my husband a target. Sure, we aren’t the same people we were when first becoming parents. Still, some part of my body connects pregnancy with a heaviness and doubt that isn’t inherent to the actual experience. In this way, much like the body keeps score, trauma often demands reconciliation.
For my husband, Zora’s pregnancy came weeks after the loss of his mother. So, when seemingly random bouts of sadness visit him - I’m not at all surprised. I know his body is recounting the grief of our last pregnancy and needing to be reminded that we are experiencing new life, in a different time. We both have our own baggage to sort through. The silver lining is having each other’s support. Still, the baggage can feel heavy - even when the load isn’t solely yours to carry.
This weekend he compared the perpetual escalation of the challenges we encounter to a video game. I was saying how this stage in my life forces me to wrestle with a different type of discomfort when I’d gotten use to discomfort looking a certain way… a way that I felt equipped to manage. His rebuttal was that when playing a game, you beat a level and the challenge on the next level gets greater… but at the end of the previous level, you got rewards that prepared you for what was ahead. And, man, if that wasn’t the most profound thing I didn’t want to hear. I replied by saying, “But I don’t wanna play any video games!” Because, let’s be honest. I don’t. I’d much rather experience ease… without the call to grow!
Sometimes, I fool myself into believing that this reconciliation is for my own wellness… that I’m sorting through trauma of years past and even my childhood in the name of creating wellness for my lineage. But the stark truth is that God is glorified when my trauma is reconciled… when I sow seeds of unity and forgiveness in spaces that once were riddled with bitterness and dissension. God is gloried when my heart is light. When I see through a lens that isn’t tainted by my own hurt or misdoings.
When I am better positioned to speak through and act in love, it glorifies God. May that be enough when the level I’m on gets particularly challenging. May that be enough when the weight of my baggage seems particularly pronounced. Because what’s a few mountains to the Creator of the entire universe?