Harry Potter fans will immediately recognize the Quidditch theme of my daughter and her husband on Purim – with their soon-to-be born baby featured as the Golden Snitch.

Just two days later, early this morning I headed over to my daughter after she notified me she was in labor. It’s such a privilege it is to be invited to be part of such a personal and sacred time in a couple’s lives.

It was a beautiful birth, with some uncanny similarities to her sister’s birth just eleven weeks ago. Different, obviously, but another empowering, sacred, and peaceful transition for mother and baby to their new roles in life.

The different midwives at each birth told me how glad they were to be present at the births, that it was a ‘privilege’ and ‘made me happy ‘ to be there. They said that most women, particularly for their first births, aren’t having the kind of births that our daughters did.

My husband commented about how my values about birthing have passed along to our girls. We all impact our children in so many ways without even being aware of it. I don’t remember consciously trying to implant positive attitudes about birth but it was my expectation and experience. Very often, the experiences of a parent will create an initial reference point of what is normal for one’s children as they grow.

My belief is that birth is a powerful, intense and overall positive experience, and attitudes like that seep down just like beliefs about pain, powerlessness and suffering, which create a different kind of expectation toward birth.

Both of our daughters had thought about the births they wanted and made choices that would support that kind of birth. This is critical in every area of life – to be clear about what you want. Without clarity, you don’t know if you’re moving in the right direction or not when you take actions. People are quick to assume that someone has been lucky when they get something they wanted (like a great birth), but my experience is that luck favors the prepared.

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On hearing the news about our new granddaughter, a blog reader turned friend-in-real-life commented about how amazing it was that just a year and a half ago she was a guest at our home and both of our daughters were single and in the not so enjoyable stage of life known as shidduchim … and here they are married and mothers!

Yes, it really is amazing how so much can change in such a short amount of time.

Within a span of 8.5 months, our three oldest children got married. Within 9.5 months, all of them have had baby girls. It warms my heart to think of these cousins growing up with each other.

As a parent, it’s easy to get caught up in the day to day issues and lose sight of the forest for the trees. By pausing to get a glimpse of that long term view, it can offer you encouragement and strength to get through the current struggles, remembering that wherever you are right now, it’s not forever and all your efforts will be worth it.

Not only that, the long term view can be so much bigger and better than you thought it could be!

Avivah