“Groaning in Labor, Growing in Hope: Scriptural Reflections for the Hard Days of Early Motherhood.” By Jessica Mannen Kimmet. Minnesota: Liturgical Press, 2023. 96 pages.  Paperback: $13.99; Kindle: $10.99; E-Book: $10.99.

When I was expecting my son, a wise older friend congratulated me and then added, “Just be prepared. It’s not all baby powder and giggles.” Needless to say, I soon discovered that she was right. Her own experience – and frankly, her warning — didn’t diminish motherhood at all; rather, it was a reality check. And indeed it was a necessary one because inflated expectations, compared to what day-to-day life with a newborn actually entails, can cause many a new mother to wonder if she has gotten it and her own abilities all wrong right from the get-go.

That is why Jessica Mannen Kimmet’s new book, “Groaning in Labor, Growing in Hope,” is such an important addition to the conversations surrounding, as she phrases it, “the hard days of early motherhood.” Her honesty, brutal as it is at times, can serve to encourage new mothers not to despair; the fact that this raising of and coping with life when children are very, very young, is actually a pretty tough thing to do. What she has written is the book she wished she’d had at the time.

It’s important to note that one of the things she discusses at great length is postpartum depression which, as she discovered after the birth of her second child, was something she suffered from. The National Institutes of Health estimate that between 10 and 20 percent of women will experience this in one degree or another; many of them will go undiagnosed by a medical professional.

Kimmet’s advice, based on her own experience, is both encouraging and helpful. While she is a strong proponent of both prayer and scripture, she also is quick to acknowledge that postpartum depression or anxiety needs more than any book can offer; it does not replace “medical and psychological support. God can, of course, heal mental illness,” she says. “But God very often works through our human reason and resources, including the care of professionals.  My own recovery was supported by prayer, and it was also supported by my family doctor, my obstetrician, and a therapist.”

In the final appendix to the book, Kimmet includes information about how to reach out and who to speak with if you are having trouble coping.

The structure of the book takes all this into account, including the amount of time a new mother doesn’t have to herself. It is divided into three main parts: Seeds of Healing, followed by Companions in the Sorrow, and finally, Practical Strategies.

The chapters within each division are, at most, a few short pages, and all begin with a brief scripture passage for reflection. The “prayer to carry” at the end of each is a simple phrase from scripture, something both easy to read and remember.

A devotee of the Lectio Divina before her children were born, Kimmet provides, in the first appendix, a more realistic way of praying this way when life is a series of interruptions. Noting that the Catholic Church does not have an official patron saint for postpartum depression, she has compiled her own list of women, beginning with Jesus’ own mother, whose lives and example can serve as companions along the way.

Kimmet is now, as she says, “several more years and (a third) baby in” and has found joy, which seemed elusive in the beginning, in being a mother. “I am so far from perfect,” she concludes, “but I keep becoming more able to see God, who keeps showing up amid all my failings … the hope here is not to never struggle or suffer, at least not in this life. It’s to be able to respond to the struggles from a place of trust.”

Author bio:

Jessica Mannen Kimmet is a freelance writer and liturgical musician. Formerly a full-time college campus minister working primarily in music and liturgy, she now spends most of her time raising her three young sons.

She has a bachelor’s degree in theology and music theory and a master’s of divinity, both from the University of Notre Dame. Her writing has appeared on Grotto Network and in Liturgical Press’s Living Liturgy series.

She lives in the Midwest.