I said that when Mary gave birth to Jesus it was of a normal type. You disagreed, saying that I wasn't including Catholic "further information", thus implying to me that it was not of a normal type. Then I quoted Ignatius saying that it was of a normal type. Now you are saying that Ignatius agrees with Catholic doctrine. I find myself very puzzled. :) I wouldn't even know what to re-quote from what Ignatius said, to you since it could not have been more crystal clear to me.
Look again at the entire quotation from Ignatius. Here it is:
"... But as for me, I do not place my hopes in one who died for me in appearance, but in reality. For that which is false is quite abhorrent to the truth. Mary then did truly conceive a body which had God inhabiting it. And God the Word was truly born of the Virgin, having clothed Himself with a body of like passions with our own. He who forms all men in the womb, was Himself really in the womb, and made for Himself a body of the seed of the Virgin, but without any intercourse of man. He was carried in the womb, even as we are, for the usual period of time; and was really born, as we also are; and was in reality nourished with milk, and partook of common meat and drink, even as we do. ..."
Here's the relevant line from Ignatius:
"...and was really born, as we also are"
Ignatius does not say "of a normal type". He says that Christ was "really born", as we also are "really born". That says absolutely nothing about whether Mary endured pain in the birth or whether Mary's virginity was preserved through the birth. In the context of the whole paragraph (and the heresies Ignatius is confronting in his time), Ignatius is not attempting to deal with the particularities of the manner of the birth. He is defending the incarnation, that Christ was really human, that He was really conceived in the womb of Mary without the seed of man, that He was really carried in Mary's womb for nine months, and that He was really born, and really nursed. If children had been born to Eve prior to the Fall, they too would have been "really born" even as we are really born, but without the pain that resulted from the curse. So the "and was really born as we also are", refers to the *really born*, meaning really came out of her womb. It says nothing about the particularities of that real birth, because Ignatius is not trying to saying about those particularities; he's addressing docetism, not antidicomarianism.
You have to be careful to read the fathers carefully, and not make them say what you want them to say, but let them say only what they are trying to say. And that requires being very aware of the context in which they are writing.
-A8