Pregnancy, a state of Worship

Another mom and I were sharing some thoughts online about pregnancy. She is expecting her fourth child around the same time as my baby is due, the first half of August. She is beginning to have some unpleasant symptoms that are forcing her to rest more and do less, and she admits to disliking that. I know the same is coming for me no later than the start of the third trimester, in about seven weeks. This subject of having to slow down in pregnancy, either due to morning sickness in the beginning, or imposed bedrest, or just the inevitable heaviness and discomforts of the late stages, is a subject I've thought about a lot over the past several years. This is what I wrote to her in the few minutes I had and I share it here because it's a summary of what I've come to believe:

I used to resent slowing down, but I have slowly, stubbornly learned to embrace it as God's will for me in pregnancy. As I look at it, He designed us women with this amazing purpose, and I don't think He intended us to do all we do today. I think He meant for humans to live a simpler life geared around the basic needs of life, and supported by a close-knit community who help one another more. Kind of like the Amish, actually. I think He figured that way we'd make more time to hear from Him and worship Him. That take on things has made the sacrifices in pregnancy more of an act of worship for me than it used to be, and that redirects my anxious thoughts.

To be honest, I still resent slowing down at times and I struggle with feeling that I'm "not doing enough" for others. But this is what I keep coming back to: Christians believe they are to worship God with all their heart, mind, body, soul and strength. That's a very tall order that keeps us all challenged on the best of days. It is part of the command to be holy. Since I am a married woman with a devotion to Christ, I have had to wrestle with what that means in particular to childbearing. Over the thirteen years since my first pregnancy, I have wrestled much! The demands of childbearing on the body, as well as on every other aspect of life, have kept it front and center for a large part of those years. I am now at the point that it grieves me to hear anyone, man or woman or child, treat pregnancy as something inconvenient to be reluctantly endured. I think that dishonors God. I think it misses out on the pertinent fact that women spend many, many months of their lives in the state of pregnancy (even with just two children) followed up by many months of breast-feeding and/or post-partum recovery. We really have to purge ourselves of the mindset that this is an inconvenience, a distraction from real living. Not only does it dishonor our Creator, but it also depletes meaning from the sacrifices we make in those months and years of our lives and there is the danger that it will diminish our attitude towards our children and parenting them, too. If we are to worship God fully with our bodies, then it seems apparent to me that we do so in the pregnant state as much as in any other. Not only should we embrace pregnancy, but we should be a support to all women in that state as well.