Motherhood is not something that we all know directly in our lives, but we all, at least, experience it indirectly: we’ve all been born of a woman. This is something common to humanity and is one of our deepest bonds with Jesus, our brother, who was born of the Virgin Mary. Motherhood can be viewed poorly. It can be seen as something to be endured, an interruption to life and a career, or something terribly painful and questionable in its goodness.
But when we think about motherhood theologically, we see it differently. It’s something that God has designed with great purpose and goodness. It’s a beautiful thing that marks one of the distinctive roles of women in society. It’s something to celebrate, even in its pain and risk. Furthermore, in the expectation of life that pregnancy holds, there is a great picture of our expectation of eternal life.
In this episode of the CCL podcast with Jodie McIver, we consider God’s purposes in pregnancy and birth.
Links referred to:
- Bringing Forth Life by Jodie McIver
- Youthworks Media
- Podcast episode 082: Pregnancy screening with Jonathan Morris
- Our August 2023 event: Self-control in an era of self-actualisation with David Höhne
- Support the work of the Centre
- Contact the Centre about your ethical questions
Runtime: 32:08 min.
Transcript
Please note: This transcript has been edited for readability.
Introduction
Chase Kuhn: Motherhood is not something that we all know directly in our lives, but we all, at least, experience it indirectly: we’ve all been born of a woman. This is something common to humanity and is one of our deepest bonds with Jesus, our brother, who was born of the Virgin Mary. Motherhood can be viewed poorly. It can be seen as something to be endured, an interruption to life and a career, or something terribly painful and questionable in its goodness.
But when we think about motherhood theologically, we see it differently. It’s something that God has designed with great purpose and goodness. It’s a beautiful thing that marks one of the distinctive roles of women in society. It’s something to celebrate, even in its pain and risk. Furthermore, in the expectation of life that pregnancy holds, there is a great picture of our expectation of eternal life.
Today on the podcast, we’re considering God’s purposes in pregnancy and birth.
[Music]
CK: Hello and welcome to the Centre for Christian Living podcast. My name is Chase Kuhn. I’m in Sydney at Moore Theological College, and my guest today is remote in the Blue Mountains of New South Wales. Jodie McIver is joining us from Blackheath, where she lives and works. She works as a midwife and she serves there with her husband in ministry. She also has the privilege of being a mother of three children. Jodie, it’s great to have you today on the podcast.
Jodie McIver: Thanks so much for having me along, Chase! It’s lovely to be here with you.
CK: Thank you.
The genesis of Jodie’s book
CK: We’re here talking about your new book, which has just come out this year with Youthworks Media: Bringing Forth Life: God’s purposes in pregnancy and birth. I’ve read it and really enjoyed it. It’s not the kind of book that I typically go to pick up off the shelf [Laughter], but I was so glad that you sent it to me to read, and I really benefitted from it.
The reason why I say I would not normally read it is because my wife loves reading books like this. My wife has a deep love for pregnancy and thinking about women through pregnancy. She’s worked as a doula in a past. She’s the one who has a bookshelf full of these books. But for me this time, I got to read it, and I’m looking forward to passing it onto her.
JM: Excellent! It always rubs off on those around us too, I think.
CK: Yeah, that’s right! I’ll talk to you about your audience in a minute, but just tell me: what brought this book about? You talk about this a little bit in your personal journey in the book, but why did you write a book like Bringing Forth Life?
JM: Yeah, it was certainly never planned out that I’d write a book at all. I worked as a midwife and was involved in church ministry as well. The two were kind of entirely separate in my life for a long time. It wasn’t until I actually had my own children and went through these experiences first-hand, or from “the other side”, that I started to think to myself, “This is a really significant transition, and these experiences impact us—not just physically and emotionally, but spiritually, and on our whole transition in lifestyle, relationships, identity and everything.”
Then I started to wonder about Christian perspectives on this. There weren’t a lot of resources on this topic. There are a lot of great Christian parenting resources. But about that actual beginning experience of pregnancy and birth, and becoming a mother, there certainly wasn’t much—from an Australian perspective, at least. The trigger was a local prominent minister, who posted on Facebook about wanting a resource for a woman in his congregation who was feeling anxious in the lead-up to birth—like, “What’s out there?”—and thousands of his Facebook friends gave their little ideas, but I realised there wasn’t that concise resource that brings together the theological, as well as physical, perspective on what actually happens in our bodies, and integrating those different things too. So I thought, “Oh, well, maybe that’s something I could contribute, given the various different roles that I have held.” That’s how it came about.
CK: That’s fantastic, and I think you’ve done a very good job of it, if I can say so.
JM: Oh, thank you!
CK: You’re right: we read books about topics, but we rarely bring together how our faith deeply impacts our views of those topics. I think this is a topic that was ripe for the picking. It’s a great topic to explore theologically, and a great topic to think about—particularly from a view of humanity, and especially womanhood. I really, really benefitted from reading it.
I really love the way that you think through a biblical theological vision for motherhood and womanhood. You really try to frame up how each of these things take their place in a bigger picture of what God is doing in the world for humanity. I think that gives this this lovely vision for, especially, women in the world, which is fantastic. So thank you for doing that!
JM: Yeah, I don’t think I quite realised how central birth is to the Bible and to God’s work in the world until I actually sat down and thought about it. [Laughter]
CK: Yeah, it’s great! I love it.
The uniqueness and significance of women
CK: I think one of the things you do quite well early on is you try to explore the significance of women in the world uniquely as women. One of the places where women are most unique is their ability to carry children and have children—birth children. I love the way that you explore the uniqueness of that role within women, even in points of weakness, per se—what we might call weakness or what the Bible even might call weakness—and how that actually signals to us something rich and wonderful, even, about gospel truth.
I’m just going to read a little excerpt that I think is really interesting. It says that
[O]ur contribution to this world as women far surpasses our fertility. Women who don’t enter into motherhood (whether willingly or unwillingly) have different opportunities for growth, development and life-giving work. Jesus’ example of life without children honours that path.1
On the one hand, you talk about the goodness of women even apart from motherhood: some women will never be mothers; some women may never birth a child. But at other points, you go on to talk about the richness of how women’s bodies are always preparing for that work and signalling that work. Can you just give us a little bit of an insight into that as we think about the uniqueness of women?
JM: Yeah, I think it’s a common experience for young women, particularly, not always to see the goodness of their bodies. Obviously in our culture as a whole, but the church as well, we haven’t always focused on the wonderful design of the female body and its amazing strength and power—not for military defeat or various other things, but the way our bodies are made is to enable them to do this amazing work, which also reflects God’s life-giving work. The things that we can view or focus on—like the way fat deposits are laid on our bodies or things like that—it’s all to help cater our bodies to do this amazing work. We’re reminded of this month in, month out, with the cycles of our body. But that’s not actually a bad thing, however painful and frustrating it can be; it’s an amazing privilege and wonder to be able to share with God in bringing forth life in this way. We need to talk about the goodness of that.
CK: Yeah. I think the uniqueness of the body’s design—I mean, you’re very scientific because of your background as a midwife, so you’re able to give some really unique insights—at least, for a lay person like me and as a man like me—to biological and physiological functions of the woman’s body. Even thinking about the deliberate design of menstruation and about the set number of eggs within the woman’s body from infancy or before that time: it’s just remarkable how you paint that picture, which is a really grand vision of the uniqueness and the intricacy of a woman’s body.
The book’s audience
CK: That’s really helpful for two different audiences, because the audiences of your book is where I want to get to: it’s helpful for me as a man, who doesn’t have a woman’s body and doesn’t understand the workings and even the feelings of a woman’s body. I think that you retrieve a really beautiful vision of the woman’s body—something that can feel ailing to a woman to monthly menstruate. You talk about the beauty and the wonder of that design. Then also for women who are not pregnant or may never fall pregnant, you point out there is something there about their body that they can appreciate in God’s beauty and design for them that I think is really spectacular. So thank you for helping me as an outsider.
JM: My pleasure! [Laughter]
CK: But I think the book is primarily purposed for women who are pregnant. Am I right?
JM: Yeah, absolutely. It’s spoken to a woman who is pregnant or who is thinking about becoming pregnant. But I certainly don’t want to limit that. Absolutely men who are becoming fathers or people who are becoming grandparents, or even just friends and church community who want to support couples or women in this, I think we all need to see this grander picture of where childbearing and birth fits in, and its significance in the whole universe. So I think it’s a great resource for anyone supporting people in these circumstances.
CK: I agree with that. As part of our common humanity, we’re all born from someone. We all have a mother.
JM: That’s right.
CK: That’s really important. We may never be a father or a mother ourselves, but we will know plenty of fathers and mothers, and we will keep watching the reproduction of humanity, and so your book is a really vital resource.
Physiological, emotional and spiritual changes
CK: As you think about helping pregnant women, one of the things that I think you work towards beautifully is, again, helping them to come to terms with the transition and change that comes upon them. I think you do that wonderfully in two different ways, but they’re interconnected: you talk about the physiological changes to their bodies, and you try to show those as really positive things, not negative things, which I think is really fantastic. But then you also talk about some of the emotional and spiritual preparation that happens as well, which I also think is fantastic.
I’d love to talk about the physical ones first if that’s okay. Many women find the changes to their body quite overwhelming. You represent a number of different views that people will have, from really positive to really negative views of those changes in their body. Some people will find it really uncomfortable; some people will find it a really welcome time. One of the things I like is that you’re showing how each of those changes comes with purpose—that is, that the body is preparing and nurturing and giving itself for another. Can you give us a quite snapshot? You go into detail in this in the book, but would you mind just speaking to this speak and why this is a beautiful way the body is made to accommodate this new life?
JM: Yeah, I think you’re right: I think it’s a uniquely vulnerable experience, physically—unless, perhaps, you’ve gone through a chronic illness or something else really significant. But often this is the first time in our lives when we’re not in control of our bodies in the same way that we usually are. They’re changing quite rapidly, and that can be really uncomfortable. It is really uncomfortable for everyone, to varying extents, I think—but not just in the way that we feel, but in the way we see ourselves as well. If we’ve prized our athletic ability or our success or work, or these kinds of things have been real driving forces in our identity, then it’s a significant experience where those things are suddenly not part of our lives in the same way.
We do reframe the way we see ourselves, I think. It’s not that we’ll never regain those things. But I think the way our bodies work in birth, and even before that in pregnancy, really reveals to us the cost of bringing forth life. Our bodies are nourishing our babies, and we feel that in the way that our bodies are stretching or aching or vomiting, or whatever.
But through that, I think we’re experiencing biblical love—that laying down of one’s own needs for the sake of another. Our bodies take the lead in that journey for us, and begin us on that journey, which will be ongoing into parenting and for dads and for everyone as well. I think there’s that unique kind of gradual growth in the experience of that right from the beginning, and then birth is, ultimately, that big moment of our body opening up, one way or another, to give life to our new baby.
CK: Yeah. It’s a real shift, isn’t it. Parenting is sanctifying, because somebody is now completely dependent on you. If you’re married, then you know somebody depends on you to some degree, but there’s still relative independence, in one sense. But once you have a child, it is completely needy and helpless, and everything depends on you. It is nice that you get to prepare for that, in one sense, as your body is changing—uniquely as a mother, I think.
I also love the way that you show how the things that could easily be thought of so negatively—the pains, the discomfort, the changing shape of your body—can actually be thought of so positively: this is a sign of life. This is a sign of the life that is to come, and even after the birth. I don’t know if it was Beyoncé or someone else: she talks about the “mommy pouch” and her tummy that comes after birth, and how that’s actually a marker of something wonderful, not of disgrace. It’s not that you’re somehow past your prime, but actually, you’ve entered into a new phase of life that is now marked out by, in one sense, a stretch mark or a scarring or whatever it may be—of a life that’s come from you. I mean, that’s quite remarkable!
JM: It is absolutely remarkable. I don’t want to take away from the hardship of that as well, and the pain that it entails and the genuine losses that we feel in this transition. But I think if we can understand that God, universally, brings new life out of loss … obviously we see that in the gospel, but we see it in this experience as well: I think it’s one of genuine losses, hardships and pain. But to an extent, from that unique vulnerability and from that loss of self, God is working to bring new life in us, as well as our babies. So many mothers come out the other end feeling a little bit lost for a while. But that’s not to say that God’s not at work in them, shaping them.
Like you mentioned about the scars, we do often—always, almost—have scars on our bodies after birth. But we see Jesus take great pride in the scars that he had from giving us new life and birth, and he shows them to his friends. Now, I’m not suggesting we all have to wear midriff tops or anything like that! [Laughter] But it’s a different way of seeing our scars—that they’re scars of life-giving. In the bigger picture, that matters a whole lot more than our exact figure or anything like that.
CK: Yeah.
Letting go
CK: This is maybe going a little bit off-script from the subject of your book, but it certainly builds on principles you have there: as you encourage women as they let go of things—as they let go of a career, as they let go of, maybe, a bit of body image, as they let go of things that, in one sense, have to go in order to accommodate this new life—how do you encourage them in the gospel about that?
JM: Yeah. I think there’s two sides to that. One is I don’t think motherhood should be our whole identity; we’re absolutely contributing in lots of different ways. But there’s a very real sense, like you’re saying, that for a time, this takes over a whole great deal of not just our physical selves, but our minds, our sleep and our emotions. It’s very all-consuming for a period.
That is daunting! I mean, I was terrified of having children myself, because I knew, to an extent, what it would entail from my experience as a midwife. And it is uncomfortable, and a real shift from what our lives have looked like up to that point.
But I think seeing that in light of the gospel just changes that and helps us understand how what we’re doing is a great, important work—walking in Jesus’ footsteps and bearing that cost to bring forth life. That’s so significant and wonderful.
CK: I think the identity piece of your book is so helpful in thinking about identity all around, and I really appreciate that!
[Music]
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CK: As we take a break from our program, I have a few things to bring to your attention. First, I want to point you to the book that we’ve been discussing in today’s episode: Jodie McIver has recently published Bringing Forth Life: God’s purposes in pregnancy and birth. This book is an excellent resource for those considering pregnancy, those in the midst of a pregnancy, or those supporting someone through pregnancy. It’s full of practical wisdom about women’s bodies, pregnancy and birth, as well as theological insights about how each of these things fits within God’s broader purposes for humanity. I encourage you to check it out on Youthworks Media’s website: youthworksmedia.net.
Second, I’ve mentioned a few times a new initiative that we’re taking for the CCL podcast, where we’re really hoping to interact with more listeners like you. Many of you have burning ethical questions or scenarios that you’d like advice about, and we’d love to hear from you. Send us your issues and listen out for an answer in our upcoming episodes, where we’ll begin to feature a short segment on your ethical challenges. I am really grateful for those who have already sent through excellent issues, and we’re really hoping to be addressing these in future episodes soon. So if you’d like to hear about an issue, please get in touch through our contact page on our website.
Now let’s get back to our program.
Pregnancy and loss
CK: I want to transition a little bit for a moment to thinking about loss, because you do address quite early on that sometimes pregnancy can be met with real fear, but sometimes real realised fear. Sometimes people lose in pregnancy, or sometimes people can’t fall pregnant, sometimes they miscarry, sometimes the baby is stillborn. How do you console people through a gospel lens with that loss? I think you do that very well in your book, keeping the gospel front and centre in both the birth of a child or a loss of a child.
JM: Yeah. There’s absolutely a huge range in the extent of the costs we bear in bringing forth life. So for some women, it is just the more relatively minor experiences, while others experience tragedy or trauma or grief in these circumstances. I think, firstly, we really just need to acknowledge that. If we’re acknowledging the goodness of life, then equally we’re acknowledging the tragedy of death and loss. I know a lot of the women I’ve talked to who have gone through those experiences themselves talk about the importance of acknowledging that in an ongoing way and not just moving on and forgetting the child who someone birthed and who has died.
But I think, equally, in valuing those women’s experiences, however short this life was, they’ve still brought forth life, and that has significance for eternity. Even if life is short on this world, God’s picture of life goes far beyond that, and little lives are still pointing towards that hope of eternal and full life that we can have in Jesus. So I think there’s a sense in which we’re all experiencing the groaning in the pains of childbirth in this broken world now. But that’s not the end. There is a hope of new birth and of eternal life.
That doesn’t take away from the sadness now, but it does value these hard experiences that women—and families—are undertaking.
CK: You have some beautiful ways of putting it in your book—that “Painful memories turn into memories of pain”.2 I think that was a turn of phrase you might have used in there.
JM: I have to credit one of the women in my Bible study for that phrase! Yes, it’s really helpful.
CK: Oh lovely! I think I’ve said it right, if I remember correctly. Also, the way you talk about Romans 8 and the groaning there: the groaning isn’t pain without an end—a destination—but you’re right: it’s actually towards a beautiful rebirth, if you will—a new creation that we’re waiting for.
JM: Yeah! That’s one of the unique things about labour pain: unlike other pain in our bodies, which is because it’s injured or ill, labour pain is moving towards something. It’s achieving something. It is painful, but it’s pain with a purpose. So I think there is something there in that Romans 8 passage that reflects the hardness of many things in this world, but that’s what’s moving us towards ultimate relief, joy and life.
Gospel comfort in the face of loss
CK: As you’ve talked to women who have lost, and I’ve talked to quite a few in my ministry—and fathers as well, I should say—you’re right: memory is important for them. I know particularly with people who have had stillborn children, I’ve certainly stumbled in numbering too few children, because I’ve not counted among them the stillborn child or something. How have you found it most helpful to engage with those who have suffered loss and, maybe, feel that pain acutely—especially around memorial days like birthdays or other significant moments? How have you been able to love and encourage people with gospel truth at those moments?
JM: Yeah. I’ve very much had to draw on the stories of various other women who have shared with me about these experiences, as well as many others for the book, because it’s not something I’ve gone through personally. But I think the big things that stand out to me are that idea of just sitting with people in their grief and allowing that to be. They often talk retrospectively about how the Psalms are helpful in that, because they move from that despair and crying out to God towards that continual trust in his goodness. So I think that’s significant for some people.
It’s different for everyone. Some women don’t feel that great sense of loss—particularly if it’s an early miscarriage, so I think we have to respect different experiences. But for those who are grieving a child, like you said, acknowledging that child and acknowledging that child as life—a life who is now living with Jesus—has been really significant for some people as well.
Ultimately, I think, it’s been beautiful to see the way that God has worked through some of these women’s lives, helping them to reach out to others and bearing with others in their burdens. But it’s an awful experience when what should be a time of new life and beginnings is accompanied by the tragedy of ending.
CK: Yeah. Thank you for your wisdom on that.
Prenatal care
CK: One of the other things you really help with in your book is talking about risks and some of the kind of prenatal care that women—and fathers too—can expect as they begin visiting medical professionals for ultrasound and being offered different tests. We’ve done an extended episode on pre-pregnancy screening with Professor Jonathan Morris. I refer our listeners back to that for a longer discussion. But just briefly, what is your encouragement? Often this time can be one of great anxiety: people are really eager about new life—or at least hopeful about new life—but they also have real fear that accompanies that hope, and modern medicine doesn’t seem to help with that, I think. How do you encourage women as they’re going through that pre-natal screening or whatever it may be?
JM: Yeah. These are really tricky topics to navigate for people, because I don’t think they’re always fully versed in exactly what the tests entail or what the potential outcomes of that testing are. So often women will want to undertake any testing they can for the sake of their baby. But the sad reality of our current medical system is that a lot of that genetic testing in pregnancy is with the purpose of enabling women to terminate a pregnancy if the baby is found to have a particular syndrome. There’s usually nothing that can be done to help those babies; rather, it’s a selective process of who do we want to go on to birth?
I think that it’s really important to be aware of that. It’s not always explained clearly in busy, ante-natal appointments. So being able to think through that stuff ahead of time makes a huge difference, because some testing won’t help you. If you wouldn’t choose to terminate the pregnancy, regardless, then all it does is create this anxiety—particularly because screening tests don’t give you definite answers; they give you answers of high-risk or low-risk, which are still very arbitrary figures of “one in 200” or things like this. It’s worth considering these things.
Also, be aware that with pregnancy and birth, just because the doctor recommends it doesn’t mean it’s necessarily a course that you should take, because they may have a very different set of values about these things to you. Like you said, we live in a very medicalised model of pregnancy and birth at the moment. It is fear-driven, and there’s a lot of sadness in that, because not everything that we do is necessarily helping us or our babies.
I think fear is a reality of pregnancy for almost everyone. But fear is healthy, to some extent, in that it draws us to rely and trust God. That’s a great attribute of fear. But I don’t think it should be guiding our course in the experience of pregnancy and birth, which is not an illness. We need to respond when things are wrong, and there are wonderful medical interventions that can save lives. But I don’t think that should be the framing of this experience. Nevertheless, it can feel like that in the hospital system at times.
CK: Yeah. Well, I’m so grateful for your book, because one of the things it does is help to educate, which I think removes some of the unknowns that often drive fear and anxiety. It doesn’t give you a promise of control over every facet of your pregnancy, or even anything else, but it does help you to be more aware and go in heads up. I think even providing good practices of what it looks like to have an experience of some control over your delivery, even, and the way that you move about things—pace things—and some of the ways that fear can drive us towards quicker reactions might actually set you back in your delivery process, rather than going in with ease, to some extent. I think that kind of education is fantastic. You’ve given us a great resource here.
JM: Yeah, that’s right: in many Western countries now, we don’t just respond when there is an abnormality; we’re intervening earlier on to prevent the possibility of that actually happening, and that can let us down at times. So it is worth being aware of the way that our system works and being empowered to make decisions about the way we want to go.
CK: Yeah.
Conclusion
CK: Well, Jodie, I thank you so much for your book. Thank you for the real, positive and theological picture of womanhood and pregnancy, and God’s plans and purposes for us as human beings—in particular, with females and their unique role. I’m so grateful for the work that you’ve done on this with this study. Thank you very much!
JM: Thank you so much, Chase! I’m glad you enjoyed it and thanks for sharing it with your listeners.
CK: Absolutely! Thanks, Jodie!
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CK: To benefit from more resources from the Centre for Christian Living, please visit ccl.moore.edu.au, where you’ll find a host of resources, including past podcast episodes, videos from our live events and articles published through the Centre. We’d love for you to subscribe to our podcast and for you to leave us a review so more people can discover our resources.
On our website, we also have an opportunity for you to make a tax deductible donation to support the ongoing work of the Centre.
We always benefit from receiving questions and feedback from our listeners, so if you’d like to get in touch, you can email us at ccl@moore.edu.au.
As always, I would like to thank Moore College for its support of the Centre for Christian Living, and to thank to my assistant, Karen Beilharz, for her work in editing and transcribing the episodes. The music for our podcast was generously provided by James West.
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Endnotes
1 Jodie McIver, Bringing Forth Life: God’s purposes in pregnancy and birth. (Sydney: Youthworks Media, 2023) p. 29.
2 Ibid. 69.
