Mary - Luke 2 ;1-7

I was already in love with you before I met you.   I think it was probably about   two months after the angel that I was down by the river washing clothes with some of the other village girls.   It was a warm day and I was tired.   I seemed to be tired a lot of the time in those early months – probably something to do with you!   I had sat back on the river bank with my feet cooling in the water when I felt you.   A tiny jump in my belly.   An unmistakable movement which took my breath away.   I lay very very still, willing you to move again.   And you did!   A surge of joy like I have never known raced through me and I jumped up, leaving the washing behind and ran into the village to tell my mother that I had felt you kick.    At that moment I loved you with a fierce passion.   You had been an idea, a foretelling, a promise, but in that moment I realised that it was all true, very real, utterly inescapable.

But that wasn’t the day I met you of course. 

The day I met you was one of the more memorable of my life – and there have been a few pretty memorable days!    We were in Bethlehem looking for a place to stay and not having much luck.   Your Dad was knocking on doors and asking around, and I was sitting in an inn resting and enjoying some supper when you decided it was time to arrive.    Your Dad was nowhere to be seen as the first pains came upon me, so I sat tight, waited for the discomfort to pass and tried not to let the rest of the customers know anything was amiss.   I sat there for about an hour and all the time the pains were getting worse.    Eventually the innkeepers wife came over to me and asked if I was alright.    By that time it was quite clear that I was not.    She took one look at me and went to find her husband.   I could see them talking animatedly in the corner.   She then came over to me and told me that as I was clearly in labour and she didn’t want me giving birth on the table in front of me, she could show me through to the stable room and make me comfortable there.   I explained that my husband was out looking for a room and that he would be back soon and Im sure everything would be fine.   But she insisted I move – and as soon as I stood up my waters broke.

At that point I began to panic a bit.   I didn’t know where your Dad was, I was in pain and very tired,  I was miles from home and by my calculations you weren’t supposed to arrive until after we had got back from registering for the census.    As I was waddling through the inn, following the innkeepers wife, your Dad appeared.   I have never been so glad to see him in all my life.    He ran over to me and helped support me as we went through to the back room where there was a hayloft above and cattle underneath.    Im not sure how I managed to get up the rough wooden steps to the loft, but I did.   And then the innkeepers wife went off to get some blankets and water and your Dad held my hand and tried to make me feel better.   I seem to remember he was telling me some not very funny jokes he had heard on the journey.    Bless him, he did his best but when you are having a baby nothing much is going to help distract from the pain.

Im not sure how long I was in labour.   It seemed like forever.   The innkeepers wife had helped deliver her sisters children and she was wonderful – although she did have to keep popping in and out of the inn as it was so busy that day.    Finally, when I thought I could not push for one more second, she shouted that she could see your head.    Your Dad was right there, holding my hand – which I know was not at all seemly or proper, but I needed him to be there and he wanted to help.    In the end you came all of a rush and I felt this mighty release as you slipped out of me and immediately began to cry.    My goodness you had a good pair of lungs on you!    Your Dad took you from the innkeepers wife ( I never did find out her name)  and held you up for me to see.   And you looked right at me.  Your black hair was covered in goop and your cord was still hanging from your belly, but your tiny eyes were wide open and you looked at me and I loved you so much that I thought I was going to die.    I was so exhausted, and so relieved,  so utterly happy and yet so daunted by the responsibility of being your mother.    The innkeeper appeared with a knife and helped his wife to cut the cord and then you were placed on my breast and immediately started to suckle.  How do babies know how to do that?   Amazing.

For the next several hours your Dad and I lay face to face with you in between us just gazing at you.   We counted your fingers and toes, we laughed at your tiny tiny earlobes and fingernails.  We kissed you a thousand times.   You slept through the sound of the cattle and the noise of the inn.   You slept with your tiny fingers curled round Joseph’s thumb.   And that was the day I met you.   The day you made me a mother.