It does not seem to be doing anything - just gripping you for hours. The second stage is hard work - labour is the word. Mothers and fathers do identify with Mary at the foot of the Cross when their children are suffering. For, like Christ's death, birth is not over with the central action, the delivery of the child. Birth and death are not merely events that cause human beings to seek God but times when they experience God.
People often return to faith when they are bereaved.
A priest will almost certainly be in evidence around the time of the funeral, not only in the church or crematorium but also in the home, helping to make sense of the grief and loss. Unless a baby dies, however, it is unlikely that a priest or other kind of minister will be around near the time of a birth. Services of thanksgiving are sometimes offered on post-natal wards, but women are spending less and less time in hospital after deliver that the practice of 'churching' has almost died out and people longer have their babies baptized at the earliest possible opportunity of fear of damnation, the formal connections made between bird and the Church may come long after the event, if then. Even so, notice that many parents return to church with their young families, after years away when they were single and childless. It is not only the joy of bearing children that brings people back but also their awareness of mortality, vulnerability and dependence notions more often associated with dying.