In the five agonizing days of our stay in the hospital, my wife, newborn infant, and I interacted with a dozen or more health professionals. Some of them saved momma’s life, some of them watched over our baby through the night, and others coached the new dad and distraught husband to be the man he needed to be.

Carol. Adrian. Dana. Sam. Lindsay. Kayla. Rena. I’m ashamed that I can’t remember more of their names. All but two of them were women, and any of them made for worthy middle name-material for our daughter. (And for what it’s worth, the two that were male wouldn’t have been considered for a son’s middle name…)

If nine months of witnessing the process of pregnancy hadn’t given me enough reverence for the female role of childbearing, then surely a front row experience of this other age-old rite had: woman helping woman bring life into the world.

In the first trimester of my wife’s first pregnancy, her “morning” sickness (which accompanied her all day, every day) eventually escalated to the point of nausea at even the sight of our toaster oven. While I lamented the loss of the memory of hot meals, my wife had the loss of actual body weight to lament at a time when her midwives wanted to see her gaining it.

My sacrifice in this process was minimal. Hers was substantial. I gave up free time and the foods I liked. She surrendered her immune system, caloric intake, and wellbeing to the body growing within hers.

Finding ourselves expecting presented me with a choice: “how much will you choose to give for the sake of your family for the next nine months?” What the same reality presented to my wife sounded different: “this is how much you’ll give for the sake of your family for the next nine months.”

A sweeping generalization could conclude that any man who has fathered offspring may or may not be worthy of respect, but any woman who has brought a child into the world certainly is.

…The choice we have in the matter is whether our pains will be joined with Christ’s for our purification.

The necessity of sacrifice accompanying new life made me think of something I recently heard a priest say: “If no can escape the cross in this life, then no one has to escape redemption.”

Suffering, whether chosen or involuntary, presents us an opportunity to meet a Savior who suffered. In our suffering, we each live our part of the human family’s pain which Jesus bore in historical moments of time on the cross. Side by side, as it were, our hurts and sorrows mingle together like so many tears and drops of blood.

This can be true of any of our sufferings, whether we chose the sacrifice or had it thrust upon us. The choice we have in the matter is whether our pains will be joined with Christ’s for our purification.

Does not the world by its very nature present us with some fashion or other of that oldest curse belonging to woman and man—the painful childbirth or the toil against thorns—unavoidably? The Apostle Paul’s words in 2 Corinthians concerning his unwanted struggle with a “thorn in the flesh” cause me to consider the man’s curse from Genesis 3. And though he should plead to be free from the burden—even as Christ did before he was banished from a garden to face thorns—God’s reply for the Apostle is universal to the children of Adam and Eve: “My strength is made perfect in weakness.” Indeed, it must be said that truthfully, Christ, too, was a “son of Adam,” and in His suffering He was perfected.

Paul’s own account of his thorn illustrates the human condition in this present world: that we, too, do bear the thorns of Adam’s curse, but may know how God utterly and completely made his strength to save perfect through the affliction of the Second Adam.

Eve believed God, and it was counted to her as righteousness…

In no insignificant way do Paul’s writings hint at that other half of the curse—the woman’s—in the Biblical portrait of humanity’s salvation. Following a description of Eve’s first wrongdoing, Paul proclaims in 1 Timothy chapter 2, “Yet she will be saved through childbearing…” Eve’s salvation was inextricably connected to her childbearing. Now, no one’s standing before God has ever hinged upon their biological ability to have children. Instead, finding herself between suffering on one side and God’s promise on the other, Eve chose to believe God’s promise and subject herself to God’s will.

In the same breath that He would define the curse upon humankind, God had also promised that Eve’s Descendant would be her salvation. For her to choose to bear children in light of this, trusting God for deliverance from the curse by submitting to Him her experience of that curse, Eve had saving faith. Couldn’t it be said of this first one in the lineage of Christ: “Eve believed God, and it was counted to her as righteousness”? This was for her, as it is for any of us, the response of salvation.

And yet, Eve is not the only one whose salvation would come through the literal bearing of a child. When Mary the mother of Jesus was told that she, though a virgin, would have a son, her response was one of heart-surrender. Her upcoming miraculous pregnancy itself would not be optional, but her spiritual submission could’ve been. Instead, she replied, “I am the Lord’s servant, may your word to me be fulfilled.”

Mary may not have had any choice in her circumstances, but she willingly yielded herself to God’s will. Her faith in the word of God meant presenting not only her physical body but her whole heart into God’s hands. Mary, too, believed, and it was counted to her as righteousness.

Is not this pattern the same by which any of us are saved? And, are we not all—Mary included—saved because of her Childbearing?

Each of us yield our experience, our part in the suffering of the world, to God with faith in his promised Channel of deliverance, and we are saved.

Can a husband, fearful of what his wife’s pregnancy could cost her, not look to the Second Eve for courage?

For my part, I feel I have discovered an unspoken, additional curse of the sons of Adam. Were it in Genesis 3, I’d imagine this perceived curse worded this way: “…and in fear for the life of your helper shall you beget offspring, and in dismay shall you wait to see whether I shall require the life of she whom I gave you, even as she bears you children.”

The first time my wife and I brought a child into this fallen world, medical complications for momma cast the shadow of death over the miracle of life. The uncertainty of those first few days following our beautiful daughter’s arrival truly felt like stumbling through a “vale of tears.”

Endlessly thankfully, the three of us are a whole family today. Now we await becoming a “four of us,” as the next baby in my wife’s womb prepares to arrive.

And now I find that, like old paint revived by a drop of water, the dried memories can stain again. As her body rehearses again those familiar motions of the trimesters, former fears resurface in this husband and I continually question: “What will be our lot this time?”

The pain of my helplessness to protect her is one part of that unavoidable human pain that defines our curse. Yielded to God’s will, this pain of mine becomes one thorn in Christ’s crown, worn on the cross of our redemption. Submitted to God’s purposes, my fear for her birth is entrusted to the same Spirit who delivered Seth from the womb of Eve and Jesus from the womb of Mary.

Can a husband, fearful of what his wife’s pregnancy could cost her, not look to the Second Eve for courage? Can every childbirth be surrendered to God alongside the very words of Mary, “I am the Lord’s servant; may your word to me be fulfilled,” and show forth woman helping woman bring life into the world, both the life of a child and the everlasting life of a righteous soul?

No child comes into the world without the travails of pregnancy. No new life will be formed in us without the piercings of the cross. The Second Adam wore the thorns for us. The Second Eve bore the Redeemer for us. May our sorrows be willingly joined alongside their own yielded hearts to God; may we believe, and may it be counted to us as righteousness also.