Tag: pregnancy

Woori’s birth story

Published on by Sophia LeeLeave a comment

This post is for our secondborn, Tov’s little sister, Woori Grace Lee-Herrmann.

Woori Grace Lee-Herrmann was born on August 19, 2024, at 7:39 pm, on a Monday in which I had planned to make no-cook tomato capellini for dinner using the sun-burst heirloom tomatoes we picked at the farm.

I did not get to taste that pasta, but I was told Tov ate very well that night.

But this post is about the birthday of Woori, and to tell that, I need to start on Sunday, the day before.

For weeks before Sunday, I had been having some pretty nasty contractions, some up to level 4 pain. Some nights, I woke up convinced I was going into labor from painful contractions, only for them to subside by morning, and every morning I rolled out of bed surprised and annoyed that I was still freaking pregnant.

It wasn’t just because I was suffering from the discomfort of contractions, cramps, backaches, and sciatica. Tov will be starting school on Sep 3, and I was worried that he’d have to deal with this huge transition mere days after his sister is born. That’s enough big changes in his life within the month. So I had been chugging about five cups of raspberry leaf tea each day, hoping to trigger the labor process, but all that happened were a frustrating series of false alarms.

On Sunday, I had a level 5 contraction during our family afternoon walk that lasted at least 20 minutes straight, my uterus clenching as tight as an Olympic gymnast’s abdomen, refusing to loosen until I finally sat down on the edge of somebody’s flower bed and rested.

Then that night, around 11 pm while I was snacking on homemade sourdough banana bread, I felt a wetness that imprinted a damp spot in my sweatpants. The last time I had gone into labor, it had started with my water breaking as well– not a gush like in the movies, but a small, clear steady trickle that very quickly rolled into intense contractions. Could this be it? I put the banana bread down and started walking around the house, wincing from the back and leg pain. But no more trickle, no building contractions. Ugh. Of course. Another false alarm. I returned to my banana bread.

The next morning, on Monday, I woke up 38 weeks and 6 days pregnant, irritated that I’m rolling out of bed with a watermelon belly once again. “Come on, Woori,” I grumbled. “You can come out now.”

I decided to start the week assuming Woori wasn’t coming any time soon. I made a pediatrician appointment for Tov to get his lymph node checked. I filled the inflatable pool and let Tov splash about the backyard. I refreshed my sourdough starter and baked sourdough Irish soda bread. I texted my neighbor and a friend to plan playdates for Tov. I made plans to do an inventory of the deep freezer and pantry so I can stop buying things I already have. I put Tov down for a nap, crushed tomatoes to make the pasta sauce for dinner, and headed down to the gym to work out.

During my workout, I felt wetness again. It certainly wasn’t urine. And it was too watery to be discharge. But from my last experience and everything I’d read on ruptured membranes, shouldn’t the leak be constant, rather than sporadic? It’s probably a false alarm, wistful thinking on my end, I thought. But it wouldn’t help to message my ob/gyn, just in case, so I texted a message to the ob/gyn office, marking it “non-urgent.”

An hour later, they responded. They told me to go to the hospital to get myself evaluated. “That would be the safest thing to do,” they wrote.

Eh. Seems like a lot of fuss and work for something that’s probably nothing. Besides, it was soon time to take Tov to the pediatrician.

I texted David what happened. “I think I’ll go probably after dinner,” I wrote.

“Why don’t you go now?”

“I have to take Tov to the pediatrician in 5 mins.”

David offered to take Tov instead, which gave me time to take a shower, do my skincare routine, and get dressed to go to the hospital. I briefly considered finishing packing my hospital bag, just in case, but decided against it. Nah. Too much work.

At 3:30 pm I drove leisurely to the hospital, listening to a podcast on book recommendations and munching on chocolate-covered pretzels, ignoring the cramps and contractions that were by then too familiar. I felt silly. I wasn’t leaking anymore. It was nothing. I was wasting time.

Thankfully, check in was swift. A nurse greeted me within five minutes of waiting, and ushered me into a room. She hooked elastic bands around my belly to monitor the baby’s heart rate and my contractions. When she saw I was having a contraction, she pressed her hands on my stomach and looked down at me in surprise. “You said you’ve been having contractions for weeks? Did they always feel this tight?”

“Yep,” I said.

“These are really strong contractions,” she said.

While we waited for the test results on whether I was indeed leaking amniotic fluids, she told me what’s likely to happen. If I test positive for amniotic fluid, I’d be admitted immediately and induced, because that means I’m at risk of infection. If I test negative, I’d be admitted or released depending on the dilation of my cervix, and whether I choose to be induced anyway.

I tested positive. And surprise! I was already 5 cm dilated.

The nurse looked at me with arched eyebrows. “Oh, you’re not going home.”

And for reasons I cannot understand, after all that impatience to give birth, my immediate reaction was, “Oh crap. But I need to go home and make that pasta.”

The nurse saw the expression on my face and she softened. “How are you feeling about this? You feeling OK?”

I couldn’t tell her about the pasta. She wouldn’t understand that I’d been really eager to put those $16 heirloom tomatoes from the farm to good use and make sure Tov eats it. Instead, I told her I needed to call my husband.

I called David and told him what happened. “Good thing I didn’t wait till after dinner,” I said.

“I had a feeling since yesterday,” he said. “That’s why I offered to take Tov to the pediatrician.”

I gave him detailed instructions on how to finish making the pasta. The plan was to call Mimi, Tov’s former nanny, to come help watch Tov until my cousin got off work and take over until the baby was born. David would feed Tov, take him for a walk, put him down to bed, and then head over to the hospital around 8 pm.

While David called Mimi and my cousin, the nurse wheeled me to a labor & delivery room. It was about 4:15 pm then. She called the ob/gyn on call and he recommended I get induced right away, as my water had broken nearly 18 hours ago by that point. They wanted me to have the baby in my arms by 11 pm that night. I told them I wanted to wait before being induced. From everything I had read, induction makes the labor process even more intense and painful, and I had been hoping to have an unmedicated birth so I can still move about freely before and after birth.

So the nurses left me in my room and I bounced on a grey yoga ball, waiting for a spontaneous labor to happen.

Praise God, I didn’t have to wait long. It was like my body knew it was game time. The random contractions I had been having for weeks started picking up in pain and intensity. They were a level 5 pain, and within half an hour, a level 6. The nurses came to check in on me once in a while, offering an epidural. By 6 pm, they were at least a level 7.

“Am I officially in labor?” I asked a nurse when she came in to readjust the monitor.

She shrugged. “I suppose you can say that?” She looked at the chart. My contractions were still irregular and inconsistent, ranging from 3 to 6 minutes apart. But I was having a harder time breathing through them. I told the nurse my husband isn’t coming until 8 pm. Would that be too late? “Oh, you will have time,” she assured me.

I texted David anyway. “Come here around 7 pm? I’m definitely in labor.”

He FaceTimed me so I could instruct him on which skincare products to pack into my suitcase. I might be in excruciating pain, but I need my Skinceuticals CE Ferulic serum.

He arrived at a little past 7 pm with my suitcase. By then, no position and breathing could keep me relaxed. Every contraction seized my shoulders and curled my toes. I know this pain. I remember this pain. It was the same pain I felt two years ago as we sped up the 405 at 4:40 am on May 4, 2022, the day Tov was born, while I clutched to the side of the car, fetal-positioned in agony.

But this time, I knew what to expect. I knew the pain would get worse. It meant I was transitioning into delivery, like the guillotine at the end of a torture session: sweet, cutting relief.

A new nurse knocked then and entered. A new shift was beginning. She introduced herself, asked about our birth plan, started typing things into the computer. Meanwhile, I gripped onto the bed with both hands and groaned. “I feel pressure,” I gasped.

“Oh, OK,” the nurse said, floundering. She started explaining that because my water had broken, she was hesitant to do too many cervical checks, which increases the risk of infection. She talked about getting an epidural, but I’d need to be able to sit still to get it, she said, eyeing me uncertainly as I twisted the bedsheets in the midst of a whooper of a contraction.

“You don’t have to get an epidural if you don’t want to,” David told me, which I believe he learned from a YouTube video titled “Support Tips for Birth Partners for an Empowered Birth.”

I was only half-listening. “I feel a lot of pressure,” I repeated.

The nurse slapped on a pair of gloves. “OK, we can do a cervical check now,” she said.

I was a 10. Now the nurse looked and sounded frantic. Nothing was ready, nothing was prepared. “Don’t bear down yet,” she yelped, paging her ob/gyn and her team to bring in a table or whatever it was they needed. It was all background noise to me by then.

I knew what was going to happen then. I was no longer moaning but bellowing. As I felt another contraction, this one so familiarly uninhibited and powerful, like a tsunami of pain and force, I flipped over, got on my knees, grabbed the headboard of the bed, and let my body go.

Fluids gushed out, like guts from a fish. Then a searing pain.

I heard someone– David? The nurse?– screaming, “I see the baby!”

Another contraction. Another ripping pain. And it was over. Shouting, but not from the baby. A hatter patter of activity– thundering footsteps, squeaking wheels, exclamations and mutterings and orders.

Then I heard the cry. Woori. They laid a sticky, wailing purple little thing into my arms. I pulled her to my thudding chest, adrenaline and blood still pumping through my veins. I did it. It was done. And the delivery itself couldn’t have been more than 4 minutes. She had come even faster than Tov.

As my cousin marveled, “Faster than Uber Eats.”

Or as my friend in London remarked, “Faster than Yuriy (her husband) pooping.”

About 15 minutes later, the ob/gyn strutted in, very late to the show. I could have had this baby at home. Oh well.

About thirty minutes later, everyone left the room, leaving David, Woori, and I to enjoy silence together. The sun was setting, and the room was shimmering blocks of shadows. I had finally wound down, and only then did I properly look down at my daughter to meet her.

She was beautiful. She had a full head of light brown hair, like Tov did, and bright blue-grey newborn eyes that peered up and around in surprise. She refused to grab hold of our thumbs like Tov did. Perhaps she’s got an independent streak, like me, but from her tiny semiformed features, I saw a petite, prettier David, with his furrowed brows and expressions.

My second child, and I’ll never get over how beautiful, how sacred, how astonishing it is to meet the child you’ve carried in your womb unseen for nine months.

Woori Grace Lee-Herrmann. 7 lb 1.1 oz, 19.45 inches. Welcome to the family, our Woori. You came just in time.

Traveling as a journalist while third trimester

Published on by Sophia Lee1 Comment

I was about 29 weeks pregnant when I boarded the KLM flight to Warsaw, Poland, for my first reporting assignment at my new job.

It’s obviously my first time traveling so far away with a visibly pregnant belly, so I didn’t really know what to expect. The last time I traveled internationally while pregnant was in January to Mexico City, and I was barely showing at the time, and didn’t know I was pregnant. This time, there was no hiding that bump, even with layers of baggy clothing.

As I strided into the narrow aisle of the aircraft, I could see the eyes of passengers zoom into my middle section. Before deciding to travel, I had double-checked with my doctor that I’m safe to travel. She said as long as I’m less than 35 weeks, with no sign of contractions or bloody discharge, I should be fine, though she was willing to write me a doctor’s note prohibiting me from traveling if I needed it. I told her I didn’t need it.

Two weeks before the trip, an older Chinese man, who took it upon himself to appoint himself my LA-based father figure (I don’t know why, but I always seem to only meet wonderful people), had advised me repeatedly that I should not invite any stress into my life while pregnant. “I don’t know what’s up with western people and their ways, but our Asian culture, we believe in the mother resting as much as possible,” he told me: “So please. No stress. Rest.” My husband tattled that I had originally planned to fly to Ukraine, in a “please tell my crazy wife she’s crazy” tone, and the man’s eyes widened with alarm: “What! No! No traveling. There are plenty of stories to tell here in Los Angeles!” He even told my boss to take it easy on me, to which my boss– who has been incredibly gracious and supportive– apparently exclaimed, “No, it’s not me! It’s her!”

OK. Yes, it’s me. But honestly, with everything that was going on in Ukraine and Europe, with me just starting my job as a reporter hired to write global feature stories, I was getting even more stressed simply reading the news from my chair in Los Angeles. I could certainly do some reporting through Zoom and WhatsApp, but in order to tell a story well, I felt I needed to be there. I needed to see people face to face, shake their hands, breath in their scent, feel the raw energy and emotions.

So there I was, on a KLM aircraft on a Wednesday afternoon, shoving my seven-month belly into the cramped space between my seat and the seat in front of me. And then I prayed for nobody to sit beside me.

When I booked that flight, I made sure to choose an aisle seat so I can shuffle to the bathroom to pee every 15 minutes without irritating my seatmate. But I also made sure to choose a seat with empty seats beside it, so that I can stretch out. The day before, when I checked in online, I saw that the two seats next to me were still empty. I held my breath, hoping, praying.

By the time I sat down, with the two seats next to me still empty, I was so confident that my prayers were answered I happily put my backpack on the seat next to me. I was all prepared for a relatively comfortable flight, and thanking God for it.

Then a woman came up and pointed at me, and said in loud commanding voice, “Those are our seats.” Behind her was her husband, quivering with a walking cane and a stooped back.

“Oh! Sorry,” I said, taking my backpack off their seat and shuffling out into the aisle so the couple could gingerly inch their way into their seats. As the husband groaned while settling into the middle seat, he turned to me and said, “I gotta warn you: I snore.”

I didn’t curse God, but I did shake my fist: Why, God. Why. It was such a simple ask.

They looked to be in their mid-70s at least. The man was hard of hearing, so his wife practically screamed into his ear, enunciating every word she uttered. Her hair was an artificial strawberry blonde blob, her nails polished pink, and her lips puckered into a perpetual scowl. The man had gentle blue eyes, mottled trembling hands, and a soft belly as large as mine. I felt uncomfortable looking at his frail body squeezed into the middle seat, and felt uncomfortable as his elbow poked out of his personal space into mine, sometimes bumping me in the ribs.

Yay, the joys of the economy seat. I admit: My mood instantly turned sour, and I whined internally like a toddler. I had really hoped I would at least get some sleep in before landing in Warsaw and jumping right into a full day of reporting.

I did not get much sleep. Economy seats are already by default cruel and unusual punishment, but my seatmates, God bless them, were loud. The man gave me a fair warning: He did snore– like a bear deep in hibernation, with occasional startled snorts. When he wasn’t snoring, his wife was fussing about, shouting, “Where is my MASK!”

“Eh?” her husband said, half-deaf, half-snoring, and half-asleep. She leaned into his ear and spat out each word as crisply and loudly as she can: “I. CAN’T. FIND. MY. MASSSSSSSSSK!!!” “Oh,” he said, and they both fidgeted about looking for her missing mask, elbows and feet sticking into my space while I tried to sleep. She lost her mask at least three times during the flight. It also didn’t help that my baby was super active throughout the flight, practicing break-dancing or water polo or whatever it is it’s doing in there.

Then it was time for our meal– always the highlight of any flight. I don’t know what it is, because unless you’re in business or first class, airplane food usually sucks, but every time I smell that warm toasty scent wafting through the aircraft, signaling the start of mealtime, my heart sings. It’s really the only thing I look forward to during an economy international flight.

The flight attendant in blue wheeled the food trolley to us. “Chicken or vegetarian pasta?”

“White wine!” the wife barked.

“White wine,” the husband requested.

“Certainly, and for your meal? Chicken or vegetarian pasta?”

“Pasta,” the wife yelled.

“White wine,” the husband requested.

“No, no,” the wife hissed into his ear: “She asked: CHICKEN. OR. PASTA!”

They both got pasta and white wine. I got the chicken, which turned out to be three tiny globs of white meat swimming in reddish sauce.

The wife ripped off the plastic covering to her tray of pasta, stared a half-minute at its contents, then turned to her husband with sour lips and brows: “This looks like dog food.”

That, the husband understood. He turned to me and joked, chuckling, “Gourmet meal, huh?”

For the first time, I felt a certain camaraderie with my elderly seatmates, united by our mutual distaste for the dog food-like dinner we got served. It really didn’t taste too bad, but nothing feels as uniting as complaining about the same thing together.

I survived the flight, and my selfish heart had softened by then to which I said a little silent prayer of safe travels for the crotchety couple, wondering why they were flying to Europe at their old age. But I suppose they could wonder the same about me, an obviously pregnant woman traveling by herself.

I landed in Warsaw, via Amsterdam, at noon, feeling a little dazed from sleep depravity and adrenaline. Waiting for me were Ruslan and Maxim, my travel guides for five days, two Ukrainian guys from Kyiv who had left Ukraine one month before the war, based on a prophetic sense while praying that they needed to leave Ukraine soon. If they hadn’t left, Maxim would have been stuck alone in Ukraine, as he had just turned 18, and Ukraine had banned most men ages 18 to 60 from leaving Ukraine. (Ruslan is in his 40s, but he would have been allowed to leave, since he has more than three children.) I had warned them I’m pregnant (though not how pregnant), and they took it upon themselves to make sure I never had to carry my own bags throughout the trip.

It’s a little strange, being pregnant during a work trip. It might be my imagination, but men’s eyes seem to soften when they see my belly, and some look more carefully at me with curiosity, though most don’t ask questions, simply bowing their heads to me and saying, “God bless you.” Women, especially mothers, spot my belly and give me small smiles. Several asked me when I’m due, whether it’s a boy or a girl, and if it’s my first. When I told one Ukrainian refugee woman that I’m seven months along, she exclaimed, nodding at her 18-month blonde child, “Oh! I had my daughter at seven months!” I felt a little stab of worry then– I knew I was facing a small risk of preterm birth while overseas, and I prayed I don’t go into labor while in Poland.

Let’s talk mom guilt. Apparently that’s a common thing. The internet message boards I stalk are full of pregnant moms chirping their anxieties and guilt about what they should do or shouldn’t do, what they did or didn’t do, and begging for someone to tell them not to feel guilty. When I found out I was pregnant at almost six months, my sister-in-law messaged me a sweet note trying to assuage me that I needn’t feel guilty for not knowing. I was touched but perplexed– I hadn’t even thought to feel guilty. Even making the decision to go on this reporting trip to Poland, people around me were more worried and stressed about the trip than I was, and I felt both touched and irritated at their concern.

Perhaps I have an inflated sense of security, or perhaps I’m just irresponsible. But once my doctor approved my travel plans, I didn’t see the need to worry over things that are unpredictable, uncontrollable, and unlikely to happen. There’s enough stress as is– why pile on more unnecessary stress?

And then I caught a cold.

It started with waking up one morning with a sore throat. I had been in Poland three days by then– three very full days, with non-stop visits to churches and church-run refugee centers helping Ukrainians who fled the war. I was up before 6 am every morning, and in bed after midnight completely exhausted. I had been running on the ground the moment I got off the plane in Warsaw.

I didn’t think much about the full schedule. After all, that’s usual for a reporting work trip. Except I wasn’t “normal” anymore. I was running for two, and pregnancy had diminished my immune system and energy levels. By day four, I woke up at a hotel near the Ukrainian border feeling like I had been hit by a freighter. I tried working out as usual, but got so out of breath and dizzy that I crawled back into bed for a 15-minute nap.

That whole day, I felt like I was moving underwater. Every movement hurt and ached. I sat at breakfast smiling at my travel companions, but barely hearing a word they were saying. I forced food into my mouth, but my stomach heaved it back up the entrance of my gullet, and there the undigested food sloshed all day during a bumpy, long, overheated car ride, until finally I squatted by the side of a road and puked out puddles of my breakfast onto the dirt field.

The nausea stalked me all day. If I hadn’t felt the baby still kicking inside me, I would have been wrecked with worry for the baby’s health. I wondered several times if I did the right thing coming here, mocked myself for playing mission impossible. I guess for me, mom guilt takes the form of scorn and derision: Who do you think you are, some sort of martyr journalist? You fool, you ridiculous person dragging everyone down with your pregnancy cold.

I have no profound insights to share except that I had to swallow my pride and admit I’m no Superwoman. I’m just a regular human needing to learn to listen to my own body cues. Mind isn’t always stronger than matter, as I tend to believe. But sometimes, God gives you the strength you need.

That late evening, as we made our way to our last interview in Przemysl, an old border city, I strongly considered just staying in the car, stretching out in the back seat, and knocking out. I was so, so tempted to tell my travel companions to go on to the interview without me. But I crawled out of the car and hobbled like a granny nun up the hill to the church, and somehow, I made it through the interview– and it was a really good interview. I was glad I pushed through– but also glad to crash early to bed that night, and pass out for a full eight hours. And my body, given the rest it needs, woke up the next day feeling ten times better. It’s amazing how the body springs back when it’s treated well.

The last three days in Poland, I was by myself, without Ruslan and Maxim. During one of those days, I re-visited a warehouse in the outskirts of Warsaw run by a Ukrainian church. That warehouse opened within a week of Putin’s invasion, and currently serves as a hub for prayers, collecting and sending out emergency supplies to Ukraine, and hosting refugees who now work as volunteers there. It is a beehive of activity– men and women, young and old, buzzing about like bees, murmuring and bellowing in Ukrainian and Russian, organizing first aid supplies into boxes for front-line soldiers, unloading pellets of food from trucks arriving from Spain and Estonia and Germany, discussing strategy and priorities for the day.

The founding pastor of that church and warehouse is Pastor Oleksandr, or Pastor Sasha, a stocky, high-foreheaded former gang-leader Ukranian with greenish eyes and sonic energy. He sets the pace and energy at that place, and I rarely saw him sit down for a break. He was constantly marching from one room to the other, meeting with this bishop and that missionary, booming and ordering with the deep voice of a military sergeant. In the midst of that busy day, he still made sure to greet me and show me around, offering me coffee and dates and bananas and chocolate. Ukrainian hospitality doesn’t stop for no war.

That afternoon, I sat with a group of men in the office, all Ukrainians. Some of them are Ukrainian-American missionaries and ministry leaders who flew out on one-way tickets to Poland to help. One of them, a white-haired Ukrainian-American Assemblies of God missionary from Florida, asked me when I’m due, and if it’s a boy or a girl. He was the first man to ask me that. I told him the baby’s sex and the baby’s name, and the meaning behind the name, and he beamed.

Then he leaned forward with a sincere expression and asked, “Is it OK if we pray for you and the baby? We would love to pray for you. It is so important to pray for a new life.”

I was startled, though I shouldn’t have been, given that I was in the midst of praying ministers. But I suppose I didn’t expect these busy people to stop everything they’re doing– important, life-saving work– and pray for a stranger and her unborn child. That day, the Russians had bombed a critical bridge, blowing up the only way for the warehouse trucks to bring much-needed food and supplies to the war-torn Chernihiv region. They had several trucks waiting on the other side of the river full of emergency goods, and no way to reach the people who need it. There were a lot of logistical complications to work out, and lots of meetings ahead. And here I was, a reporter from Los Angeles, sucking up their time and attention. Or at least, that’s how I felt.

But I was still recovering from a cold, and I never say no to prayers, so I said yes, I would love prayers for the baby.

The missionary called out to his comrades in Ukrainian, including Pastor Sasha, asking if they wanted to pray for me and my baby. Everyone’s eyes lit up, and they shouted yes with enthusiasm, immediately leaping to their feet. They gathered around me and put their hands on my shoulders, and together, they prayed out loud in passionate Ukrainian, the kind that comes with uplifted palms and pumping fists.

I had no idea what they were saying, but I understood their hearts. It was a heart of giving, of blessing, of pure brotherly love. I felt my eyes sting with tears, and my face crumpled as I willed myself not to burst out crying. Instead, I breathed it all in– their hearts, their prayers, their beautiful foreign words of blessing over a child who involuntarily traveled with me across the world to report on a war. And my spirit received it all with gratitude and affection: Amen, amen, amen.

On the long flight back to LA, I sat back reflecting on the last nine days in Poland. Has it really only been nine days? It feels like a month. My mind and heart were full of new sights and voices and relationships and feelings that I did not have on my flight to Europe. I felt full, so full.

And then the baby kicked. Rolled. Air-guitared and danced.

I put both hands on my belly, and the baby responded to my touch, dancing wilder. And for the first time, I felt a deep emotional and spiritual connection to my unborn child. We experienced this trip together. We witnessed the work of God and His people together. We received blessings together.

I felt a little weepy again, and I silently whispered to the baby, “Thank you, aga yah (baby in Korean). Thank you for coming with me. Thank you for staying strong, and reminding me that I’m not alone. And now, we return home to abba.”

The so-called woman’s curse

Published on by Sophia LeeLeave a comment

The baby has been moving a lot more these days, especially at night when I’m in bed.

Sometimes I wish I can carry an ultrasound around with me to see what the heck the baby is doing. Is that a fist jab or a tiny foot kicking or a hip bump? Sometimes it feels like the baby is doing a little gymnastics routine, other times it’s either backpedaling or breast-stroking, and then sometimes I’m pretty sure it let out a series of hiccups.

It is the weirdest feeling, and not all that pleasant, but neither is it unpleasant, nor painful, nor uncomfortable. It just feels really, really weird. Like there are fingers inside me, sliding across my organs as though playing a piano. Like there’s an alien developing inside me, which I suppose is pretty close to what is happening. There’s a living mini-creature swimming in the amniotic fluids of my uterus, gradually growing stronger and bigger by the day. What a bizarre thing to happen to my body, after 34 years of it being my own.

Everything feels abnormal. I can’t lay on my back anymore, can’t walk without feeling like my pelvic floor is literally going to drop to the floor like a heavy sack, can’t sit in any position that’s comfortable for long, can’t eat a full meal without feeling like my squished gut is going to pop out of my gullet. I’m only a week away from third trimester, and I shudder to imagine what it would be like to lug a watermelon-sized belly around for several weeks.

But there’s also wonder and awe: My body is creating a human being! Obviously I’ve known what a woman’s body can do, since I was a toddler watching my own mother’s belly grow with my brother, but now that I’m experiencing for myself all these biological changes, I’m astounded that I’ve never seriously considered the fact that billions of women throughout history, from all over the world, have been bearing and birthing children. That this is “normal,” just part of the natural cycle of life.

Now I see: I have been living in a world full of daily, constant, repetitious signs and wonders, and I’ve been blind to it. I see pregnant women waddling at the grocery store, buy gifts for my friends’ baby showers, celebrate the birth of my nieces– and I would be happy for them, but I didn’t once stop to step back and wonder, Wow. What magic. This is amazing. God is amazing! How ingenius is His creativity? How purposeful is the way He designed the woman’s body!

One of the first things I learned in Sunday School was Genesis 3: the curse of man, the curse of woman, the curse of the serpent. After Adam and Eve listened to the serpent and disobeyed God, God cursed Eve, “I will make your pains in childbearing very severe; with painful labor you will give birth to children. Your desire will be for your husband, and he will rule over you.” Well, jeez. No wonder I didn’t find marriage or child-bearing at all appealing.

Even as a kid, I was never impressed by the women in the Bible. There’s Sarah, the matriarch of Israel, who just seemed like a bitter, submissive woman who did whatever her husband told her to do. She pined away most of her life longing for a child, and then tried to claim her servant’s son before abandoning both of them to wild beasts in the desert. There’s poor pitiful Leah, whose beauty paled in comparison to her sister’s, so she desperately and pathetically tried to earn her husband’s love by bearing him son after son. There’s Tamar, whose greatest compliment was from a father-in-law who claimed her more righteous than he, because she tricked him into sleeping with her– for what? A son. Then there’s Ruth, who submitted to her mother-in-law by laying at the feet of a much-older, wealthy stranger, and oh boy, what did she get in reward? A son. There’s Hannah, who had a seemingly-devoted husband but cried bitterly at the temple each day…for what? A son.

In the New Testament, there’s Mary, whose single greatest act in her life, again, was giving birth to a son. Of course, that child was also the Son of God– and I can appreciate the trepidation she must have felt about what it meant to miraculously conceive as a young engaged virgin– but really, what other great thing did she do in her life besides host Jesus Christ in her womb? Did she lead the Israelites out of slavery in Egypt and blast sweet water out of desert rocks, like Moses? Did she sling a stone into a giant’s forehead, led an army on horseback into multiple battles, and rule over a powerful, prosperous kingdom, like King David? Did she, like Apostle Paul, travel across the Asia Minor, enduring shipwrecks and flogging and starvation and prison, planting churches and spreading the gospel to the world?

No, she did not. She squatted in a manger and pushed out a son. As a girl looking for female role models in the Bible, it seemed to me that the women exemplified as great figures of faith in the Bible were mostly all…mothers. Or wives. Or wives longing to be mothers– but not even daughters will satisfy them, only sons. The only truly badass woman was Deborah the warrior prophetess, and she doesn’t even get one-tenth of the space that most other men in the Bible get. I felt disappointed and dismissed as a young Christian female who admires and longs for chutzpah and charisma, aplomb and glory. Is this the best God expects out of us? To be wives and mothers? Surely, Lord, there’s more for us.

But I also felt uncomfortable with today’s societal expectation that we modern women should be able to “have it all.” That we can have our careers and independence and marriage and motherhood, that we can balance both the traditional masculine accomplishments and our femininity/sex appeal. Sure, it’s challenging to balance all those responsibilities, but a strong able woman makes it work somehow, so yes you can, you beautiful badass queen! That idea feels just as oppressive as the idea that a good Christian woman’s place is at home organizing Easter plates and homeschooling five kids, bonus points if you can play hymns on the piano and have adopted kids with disabilities from Russia or China.

Of course, the hubris in me still aims to be that woman who manages both motherhood and career with breezy class. We all (or maybe it’s just me) admire Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett for “having it all,” yet also hate her guts for merely existing, for setting a near-impossible bar for us earthling women by not only projecting brilliance in her academics and career path, but also somehow raising seven children, two adopted from Haiti and one with Down syndrome. I don’t know how she does it, but it makes my dirty soul feel better to believe that she cheated somehow.

I have been rethinking a lot of my low view on motherhood since I found out I’m pregnant. I don’t feel confident to call myself an omma yet– that still kind of freaks me out a little– but in bed at night, as I lay quietly feeling my unborn child do karate chops and somersaults, I don’t feel fear or anxiety. I feel awe. I feel wonder. I feel…like a miracle. Like I’ve been sprinkled with a fistful of magic dust. And I telepath-talk to the child, Hello there, little one. Are you for real?

What mystery– this powerful, magical thing a woman’s body can do. And I wonder, why us? Why did God choose to design the female body, and not the male’s, with the ability to do the most supreme thing any human being can ever do: create life? Nothing God does is accidental– He is an intentional creator, an unmatched imaginator who designs and builds with precision and purpose.

So I ask again: Why us? Why woman? God could have easily made both men and women able to bear children. But instead of choosing the man, the “stronger” sex with the (typically) bigger bones and muscles, God chose the “weaker” sex, the woman, to endure one of the most amazing and taxing experiences on the human body. And women throughout millennia, short and tall and big and small, of all race and ethnicities and ages and socioeconomic background, have continued the miracle of life by the natural functions of their bodies.

But that act is not without pain and sacrifice. I think of the Genesis 3 curse, the pain of childbearing– and from everything I’ve researched, pregnancy, labor and birth, and the postpartum stage do sound rather awful, even with medical advances such as the epidural. All that fluids and organisms that come out of us? Gross! Our body is rarely ever the same after we tear our body apart to push out a fully-formed human, and neither does our heart completely heal from the all-too-common traumas of miscarriages or stillbirths or infertility.

Yet even with all that discomfort and anguish and lifelong scars, the Genesis 3 curse does not erase this mindblowing marvel: The woman’s potential to bring life to earth. And to me, the most incredible thing about this act is the amount of self-sacrifice it takes. Think about it: The most powerful thing a human body can do is inextricable from self-giving sacrifice, from the uncomfortable symptoms of pregnancy to the searing pain of labor and delivery, and then the long, aching process of recovery while nursing a newborn who gives nothing but demands everything.

Even the so-called woman’s “curse” has redemptive, gospel characteristics embedded in it. I see God’s goodness and wisdom in this “curse”– that His ultimate purpose isn’t to punish and inflict pain, but to redeem and glorify the woman, and kiss her with an embodied taste of His own self-giving sacrifice when He willingly died on the cross for us. With this ability to bear child is God’s desire to make His heart known to us in the most intimate, visceral way possible.

And so the woman’s weakness is her strength, her suffering her crown. God’s “curse” becomes a blessing, one designed specifically just for the woman. Not something to ever poo-poo at, even if she never becomes the second-most powerful man in Egypt like Joseph, or builds the temple and composes wisdom literature like Solomon did.