“The Waiting is the Hardest Part. Everyday is one more yard. You take it on faith, you take it to the heart. The waiting is the hardest part.” Tom Petty The end of pregnancy is a both a challenging time and a very ripe time for the mother. The aches are pains are greater, the longing to meet the baby is strong and the questions from others, “when is that baby coming?” are tiring. It is also a time when the body is very ripe with life, like a large juicy peach, causing the branches to bend down with the weight of readiness. So many women with tears in their eyes say to me at this point, “I am so tired of waiting.” That is when I sing the chorus of Tom Petty’s song, “The Waiting.” Each time a baby is induced, the mother and the baby miss out on the gifts of waiting, the gifts of patience, the gifts of letting the birth unfold from within. When the mother and baby are asked to participate in labor that is initiated from outside of the container of the womb/heart, this introduces fear. This fear plays out in many ways, lack of personal strength and willpower, resistance, a state of crisis, and a shut down of the inner voice that guides us to love and connection. All of these things interrupt the very deep and ancient bond between the mother and baby in subtle and sometimes not so subtle ways. When a woman tries to mother her baby from this state, it creates a state of fear within the baby as well. This fear is laid so deeply that as adults we often cannot identify the root of that fear, the fear just simply exist, as if it was meant to be there. And then we actually believe that we are meant to live with this unexplainable fear! Fearful people create a more volatile, selfish world and we see evidence of this all around us. This waiting is an essential part of pregnancy and birth. It fine tunes a mother’s focus, creates a willingness within her that makes space for the hard work of labor to unfold, and it implants faith and trust a little bit deeper into the mother’s soul. All of these things serve to align the baby’s encoding along the paths of love, connection and faith that in their dependence, their basic needs will be met. This is a golden time for the growth of longing. The longing to see the heart’s desire matures and ripens at this time so that it creates a willingness so big within the mother, that she will do anything, endure anything, experience anything to meet her baby. Cutting the growth of this longing short is like cutting off the arm of your heart. Your heart is handicapped, missing an essential part of itself. The only place to find this faith is within the heart. You must take your worries, discomforts, concerns, pain, wanting of release, you must take it all to your heart and there it will be transformed into a very deep love. This love then becomes the building blocks of your baby’s life. Some of you reading this may have been induced and you love your children very much. Absolutely, this is true. It is so easy to love our children. However, I challenge you to look deeper. The love I am talking about here is a connection the primordial love, a connection to God itself, an opportunity for God to be made manifest within us and our children. This is the blessing of waiting for your baby. “In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God and the Word was made flesh.” Trust your body, it knows how. Trust your heart, it knows why. Trust your gut, it knows when. All will be well. Peaceful birthing to you.