After the nurse stepped out of the room, I stared at the ceiling over my bed. My ears were on high alert for the sounds of nurses passing my room in the hallway and their murmured conversations. Nightime darkness shrouded the curtained window, but the pale hallway light sent mysterious, elongated shadows deep into the room. It was one o’clock in the morning and I was exhausted from having just given birth, but sleep was the last thing on my mind.   

Having given birth, I was now a mother to a tiny, helpless infant. When I thought about motherhood, what came to mind was my mom and Mary, mother of Jesus. I wasn’t even in Mom’s league, let alone Mary’s. Giving birth had elevated me into a sphere that was too lofty for a nineteen-year-old who’d never even had the experience of babysitting to attain. Mom and Mary knew so much, while I knew nothing, and yet here I was, a mother, just like them.           

My motherhood hadn’t been a surprise. I’d known a baby was on the way for nearly the entire nine months of my pregnancy. Delving deep into my amazement, I realized the shock I felt was the sudden intense feeling of responsibility for the new soul my husband and I had brought into the world. Up until now the only person I ever had to take care of was myself. Maintaining a house, a marriage and my employment in the very hospital unit where I was now a patient, didn’t seem like anything more than taking care of myself. But now I had a helpless person to look after for the next eighteen years! The immensity of this reality had never dawned on me until now.

The minute my infant was born, it was obvious that she had a birth defect. That increased my motherhood responsibilities. Normal infants need to be fed, changed, taught how to talk and grow up to act like responsible people. What more motherhood skills would I need to raise a special needs baby? Unfortunately, my full experience of motherhood had to wait. This first baby died when she was two months old.

Eight years later, I had another baby girl. She was healthy. Four years after that, I gave birth to another little girl. Like my first baby, my last baby was born with the same birth defect. Thankfully, she survived.

Learning how to share was one of the initial challenges of being a mother; a hard lesson for the spoiled baby of a family with six siblings. When I wanted to read a book, if the baby needed attention, the book didn’t get read. If my baby didn’t feel like sleeping, I didn’t get to sleep either. When I wanted to buy a treat for myself, I had to consider what I needed to spend on the care of my children to see if I had enough money. If I didn’t, there would be no treat for Mama! At first these things bothered me. Yet, after a while, I wouldn’t have wanted it to be any other day. Their wants and needs somehow became my wants and needs. This change in me was one aspect of the amazing grace many parents are given when raising children.

As my growing children came to me with their frustrations and worries, I surprised myself by finding wise, comforting words to make them feel better. This was due to God’s gift of amazing grace, because I’m not sure where my words came from. As a child I remember hearing my own mother sometimes sighing to herself, “Oh, for the wisdom of Solomon!” when she was confronted by the judgements and decrees, she had to make as a mother. Little did I know when I had my first baby that these graces would come to me when I most needed them.

This week we celebrate Christmas, the birth of Jesus. I often wonder and imagine what it was like for Mary and Joseph, taking on the responsibility of raising the Christ Child. Although divine, he was also fully human and had to learn to walk, talk and obey his parents. Like He does for all parents, God gave them his amazing grace to guide and help them through their high honor in being the parents of Our Lord.