This time of the year, about half of the searches that lead people here are dealing with the question did Mary suffer labor pains? Michael posited that question a few years back.
I answered then, and still believe now, that she did. My labors (even Lexi’s at home and unmedicated) remind me so much of what Jesus says in John 16, when he is telling the disciples about the sorrow they will feel at his death being so overshadowed by the joy they will experience when they see him again. “When a woman is giving birth, she has sorrow because her hour has come, but when she has delivered the baby, she no longer remembers the anguish, for joy that a child has been born into the world.”
She labored in pain and then she rejoiced, at her son, who had come to save us all.
Amen! Another blog I read has a post about Mary’s labor pains too.
http://itsalmostnaptime.blogspot.com/2009/12/we.html