Heroism

Exodus 1:8-22

Some of the toughest nurses I have ever met were the midwives who joined me and Becky in the 17-19th hour of her labor. We started out in a relatively low intensity environment (our plan was to be as minimally assisted by medicine in Zoë's birth as possible) when labor began. Becky, our doula, and I were met with a kind nurse who was gently working on labor positions and providing encouragement. But it became clear that we would need help once we hit the 12th or so hour and weren't making meaningful progress.

When it came time to accept an epidural, we had to move rooms. And when we did, we had a completely different nursing cohort accompanying us. Some of these nurses had tattoos, they were very firm and gentle but also precise. They had the aura of seasoned veterans. These midwives had probably seen countless childbirths and tons of different complications emerge. They had probably also seen many tragedies.

Some of the toughest people I have seen in healthcare are the ones who have experience with managing the medical tragedies that befall children: midwives in the more medical side of birthing suites, and chaplains at children's hospitals. Our midwives when the sun began to set on an entire day of labor were definitely tough. And I am glad they were because an epidural wasn't going to cut it either. We had to go into surgery and do an unplanned C-section to get Zoë out safely.

I didn't experience it myself, obviously, but the experience of accompanying the labor and birth of Zoë was maybe the most intense experience of my life. In the midst of it I found myself reflecting on how undeniably sacred all of this was, and how these nurses and doctors who do this work are constantly encountering parents at maybe one of the most vulnerable times in their entire lives.

Midwives, doulas, obstetricians... they are heroes. And so it is no surprise to see that heroism pop up in scripture millenia ago in the first chapter of Exodus in the Hebrew Bible. Many of us are likely familiar with the story of Moses. To keep him safe, his mother placed him in a basket and floated him down the Nile hoping he would stay alive. But why would she do that?

The very first chapter of Exodus can be easy to skip if you want to get into the interesting stuff about plagues and Passover and the Isrealites crossing the Red Sea to escape the Pharoah in Egypt. But by doing so we miss out on this really awesome story of heroism by two women in the very first chapter: Shiprah and Puah.

Shiprah and Puah were midwives who found themselves having to make life threatening decisions when faced with the choice of following the words of Pharaoh or doing the right thing. A generation after Joseph and his technicolor dreamcoat and tenure as a high ranking bureaucrat in Egypt with Isreal's (prolific) progeny moving to Egypt, we find that Isreal's descendents remained prolific and where becoming quite populous.

This was making Pharoah nervous, so he decided to force them into cruel and intense labor to subdue them. But the Isrealites kept growing in number. So Pharoah commanded that all of the newborn boys be killed. And this is where Shiprah and Puah come in, because when we encounter them they have been summoned by Pharaoh to follow his decree.

To follow his command would be to violate their vocation as midwives and betray their people. To refuse is to suffer the consequences and lose their life. So what did they do? They tricked Pharaoh. When Pharaoh asked them why his commands weren't being followed they relied on his ignorance of childbirth to tell him a lie that seems believable: “Because the Hebrew women are not like the Egyptian women, for they are vigorous and give birth before the midwife comes to them.”

This might very well be true for a few women (I have friends who barely made it to the hospital in time before their child came into the world), it's dubious to claim that being the case for all of them. But the lie worked, babies lives were saved.

Midwives save babies' lives each day. They make sure the childbirth is safe for mom and child. And they see the whole thing through until the baby is swaddled and in the arms of a loving parent. The work they do isn't magical, but grounded in an uncanny combination of the wisdom of transferred experiences and medical knowledge, it is miraculous. Their help certainly felt that way when our little miracle, Zoë, was in our hands after the almost 20 hour ordeal of labor was over with.

Thank God for midwives, and thank God for Shiprah and Puah who can be credited with saving thousands of lives from Pharaoh's life and whose courage was mirrored in the mother of Moses who subverted Pharaoh's command later in Exodus to "throw all baby boys into the Nile" by doing just that, but placing Moses in the basket that would start his life long journey of founding Judaism and giving birth to the faith that would lead to where we are today.