The night of Adahlias 3rd birthday, I wrote a memoir of her birth so that I wouldn’t forget it.

I remembered how in the time of my transition, sweat pouring off me so thick that it lay slick on my skin like sheets of rain on a road, unimaginable pain rolling through my body like waves tossing a boat, my voice unrecognizably transformed into the deep, scream-moan of a primitive creature, without the aid of any painkiller, drug, or numbing agent whatsoever, I suddenly gasped/shouted:

“I cannot do this!”

“Yes, you can,” the midwife replied in cool authority. 

Then, like a priestess bestowing a rite, she added, “You ARE doing it.”

At the time, I was so astounded by the TRUTH of her statement that I found myself paused, mid-contraction.  A moment of quick gratitude to her followed.  Re-empowered, I re-entered the all-consuming labor of birthing Adahlia with just as much pain and sweat, but also with the calm ferocity of a tiger.

You see, she was right.

This blog has been about struggle.  Hardship.  Bright spots in dark times.  The value of the simple things.  The final cutting and letting go of a former lifestyle, of a former self, of former desires (none of which were actually necessary for meaningful existence, though they could be pleasureful and ego-boosting).

It hasn’t been pretty.  It hasn’t been painless.

No birth is.

The point of this particular post, friends, isn’t about how I’m intent on finding a cure for Adahlia’s red blood cell bone marrow failure, or whether or not we are close to finding it, or still have hope for it.

The cure would be the birth.

The point of this post is a celebration of the labor.

The painful, bloody, cost-intensive, oh-so-worth-it, God-that-was-rough-and-beautiful, I-don’t-wanna-do-that-for-another-few-years-if-ever labor.

They say, ‘it’s the journey, not the destination.’

Another way to say it is: ‘it’s the labor, not the birth.’

I am privileged to know many incredible people laboring very hard to birth something or many things, whether it be a Higher (enlightened) version of themselves, or a more tangible, material reflection of that ultimate endeavor, such as a business, a novel, a relationship, or a cure.

(The School of Life uses mirrors.)

It doesn’t matter if the birth ends up being a cesarean. If the business stays afloat two years or twenty.  If you keep communion or if the two of you go your separate ways.  If the novel is highly-acclaimed or sneered upon.  If you ever find a cure.  If the baby dies.

It’s the labor that counts.

So many of us, at various times in our lives, in our struggle, whatever our labor, whatever the mirror that helps us see truth, will find ourselves crying out:  “I cannot do this!”

And, I say to you: 

No.

You can.  You are built for it.  You are made for it.

With every breath, and just by being in it:  You are doing it.

So get excited.  Get mindful.  Get focused.  Get ferocious.  

Even in your surrender:

LABOR.

The birth will be your death.

Life is about how you labor.