C-Section: My Body Failed But God Did Not

Gospel-hope when it feels as if our bodies have failed us.

My twins were born via c-section in December 2020. A few months later in April, it was c-section awareness month. All month long I scrolled past social media posts empowering me to stop seeing my scars as a failure but as a celebration of what my body could do.

My throat would tighten. But my body did fail me, I cried. At thirty weeks I was flown to a hospital that would fight against my body to stop labour and the premature birth of my twins. Seven weeks later I sat in a labour and delivery room gritting against contractions and watching a monitor to see if Baby B’s heart rate would drop dangerously low for the third time. I laid on a hospital bed with wires, cords, and tubes connected to me everywhere. A nurse bent over me holding one of two dopplers at a twenty-five degree angle on the underside of my swollen belly so we didn’t lose Baby A’s heart rate.

His heart rate did drop, and I was rushed to the operating room for an emergency c-section.

In the following weeks my body continued to fail me. In an attempt to protect my children and I from harm, my mind hit “replay” on each memory and drew me back to the operating room. Whenever I tried to share my birth story, my heart raced, sweat beaded on my neck, a lead ball sunk in my stomach, and my throat tightened with panic. Nightmares of birth and another pregnancy haunted me like ghosts.

Those posts that were meant to encourage and empower me only encouraged bitterness. My body did fail me, I thought, and I refused to see it through any other lens.

There’s a bit of truth to that, but I learned that there was still cause for celebration—though not in me and my body, but in a God who is much greater.

​Children Playing with a Dog by Mary Cassatt (1907)

Faltering Bodies from the Fall

We’re each covered in scars of some sort—whether from the scalpel of a doctor or emotional trauma inflicted on us—because a greater scar mars creation. When Adam and Eve disobeyed God, they not only passed down sin to their children but brokenness caused by sin. Because of sin, all of creation isn’t functioning as it should. Rather than strumming out perfect chords, there’s a snapped string and a few are out of tune.

Likewise, our bodies don’t function as they should. Babies who should be able to handle the pressure of birth become too stressed out. Mothers who should go into labour have to be induced. Wombs that should cradle babies continue to let them go. Minds that should feel only love and affection towards their newborns misfire and cause mothers to feel panic and sadness instead. And just like me, bodies that should have been able to carry two babies to full term and birth them naturally aren’t able to. We as mothers feel the groaning of creation that Paul wrote about:

For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now. And not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies. (Rom. 8:22–23 ESV)

We groan, and all creation groans, because of the scars of sin and the scars it leaves on us. Our greater hope isn’t on everything becoming perfect here, but that one day all will be restored in heaven. Our grief and pain will be wiped away with perfect love found in being present with our Father and Saviour. All will sing in harmony again. But until then, we live in this broken world listening to it sing out of tune.

But thank God that isn’t the full story.

God’s Grace in the Faltering

In his extravagant love, God has provided common grace for this in-between and not-yet time before redemption. In his common grace, those who do not know him, and some who even curse him, are able to know true things about his world. God has provided doctors, obstetricians, nurses, pediatricians, and psychiatrists to bring some relief to our groaning bodies. In my story, they rescued my distressed babies from my womb and gave me tools to cope with the PTSD symptoms that followed.

My body did a great thing. It grew and sustained two babies together in the same womb. It was opened up and healed back together, leaving only a faint scar behind. It endured hormone fluctuations. It stretched beyond what I ever thought it could. It felt physical and emotional trauma. Though in some ways it faltered, in many other ways it did something awesome.

Yet this doesn’t testify about the greatness of the female body. This testifies of our great Creator who made it all, designed it all, and sustains it all. This God, in his grace, provided a way in our broken world.

My scars are not a testament of my greatness as a mother or the power of my body, but of the realness of God. The God who heard my cries as hormones caused my brain to misfire and provided relief through secular therapy. The God who carried my faith as I walked doubled over while holding my stitches. The God who was near when my womb couldn’t hold the two babies that came before our twins. The God who never let me go when my body struggled and my faith struggled even more. Sometimes he provided physically—with medications that halted labour and a surgeon’s scalpel. But he always provided himself—in all his fullness, in all his grace, in all his gentleness, and in all his love.

Yes, my body failed, but I worship Jehovah-Jireh—the God who provides.