I was chatting with an expectant mom at our church this week, and she asked me about the story I always tell first-time mothers when they tweet something like, “tell me your tricks for getting labor started!” I felt the same way with our first child. I was young and immature even for my age. And having a baby was still much more about me than about the baby.

So, I whined. A lot. And took to my bed. And groaned. And asked the doctor several times if he didn’t think we could have the date wrong. This was long before ultrasounds, so he made his best educated guess and agreed that, “Yes. We could be off a couple of weeks.” So, he induced labor.

I’ll spare you the details. The point of the story is this: We were not off on the date. Felicity came two weeks early. It was long before the days of neonatal intensive care, and she nearly died. She stayed in the hospital fourteen days and was too weak to eat. She lost weight every day, and the nurses couldn’t wake her even by thumping the souls of her little feet or washing her face with a cold cloth. I’m still convinced the only reason she lived is prayer. From lots of people, but especially from her nurse, Fern, who went home every night and got on her knees begging God to show the staff how to help little Felicity.

God, in His magnificent mercy, intervened. He eventually let us take home that little five-pound bundle of wonderfulness and raise her up into an amazing woman of God.

I learned a lot about patience and about putting someone else’s welfare above my own through that ordeal. I was equally miserable and impatient with the next three children, but I didn’t beg. I waited. And, I think the waiting and the misery of those last weeks of pregnancy is really part of God’s mercy, too.

He lets us reach a point where we are so desperate to stop sharing our body with an alien that we would do anything for relief. We are so miserable in our current state we will endure anything just to change. We are so helpless under the terrible weight that we will accept any conditions of surrender.

It helps to remember that when the labor pains begin.