Claire:

Your analysis is a good one. Our Blessed Mother was preserved from the stain of original sin. That means that she lacked the concupiscence that the rest of us have, which is the tendency to sin. Without concupiscence Mary could be, and was,  sinless.

The physical consequences of original sin, however, remain, even for our Blessed Mother. Those physical consequences include illness, pain, hardships, and physical death. Mary was subject to physical death. Her dormition is not certain as to whether or not she was assumed into heaven immediately upon her death, or just before. The teaching that "Mary suffered a temporal death" is sententia communior, that is, common teaching, which means that while it is common teaching, it could be incorrect. Either way, she was subject to death.

There are some theologians who claim Mary did not have birth pains because that was a curse of the Fall, others that assert that she did have pain.

Father Ludwig Ott's Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma (Book 3, Part 3, §5, 2), which states the following:

The dogma [of Mary's perpetual virginity] merely asserts the fact of the continuance of Mary's physical virginity without determining more closely how this is to be physiologically explained. In general the Fathers and the Schoolmen conceived it as non-injury to the hymen, and accordingly taught that Mary gave birth in miraculous fashion without opening of the womb and injury to the hymen, and consequently also without pains (cf. S. th. III 28, 2).

However, according to modern natural scientific knowledge, the purely physical side of virginity consists in the non-fulfillment of the sex act ("sex-act virginity") and in the non-contact of the female egg by the male seed ("seed-act virginity") (A. Mitterer). Thus, injury to the hymen in birth does not destroy virginity, while, on the other hand, its rupture seems to belong to complete natural motherhood. It follows from this that from the concept of virginity alone the miraculous character of the process of birth cannot be inferred, if it cannot be and must not be derived from other facts of Revelation. Holy Writ attests Mary's active role in the act of birth (Matt. 1:25, Luke 2:7: "She brought forth") which does not seem to indicate a miraculous process.

But the Fathers, with few exceptions, vouch for the miraculous character of the birth. However, the question is whether in doing so they attest a truth of Revelation or whether they wrongly interpret a truth of Revelation, that is, Mary's virginity, from an inadequate natural scientific point of view. It seems hardly possible to demonstrate that the dignity of the Son of God or the dignity of the Mother of God demands a miraculous birth.

All that has been dogmatically defined by the Church is that "Mary bore her Son without any violation of her virginal integrity" (ibid.). Beyond that is opinion. Certainly the opinions of the Fathers and Scholastics, such as St. Thomas Aquinas, needs to be respected, but in the end, at this time since the Church has not defined this matter more precisely, we are free to believe that she suffered pain in childbirth or not.

My own view is the same as Father Ott, "It seems hardly possible to demonstrate that the dignity of the Son of God or the dignity of the Mother of God demands a miraculous birth."

God Bless,
Bro. Ignatius Mary