morning ramblings

So talking and thinking a lot lately about where i am and how i got here and where i want to go.

I know that i don't fit the mold of most birth enthusiasts. I'm not a wife, not a mother, have not been overly surrounded by birth throughout my life.

What I am though is a women who see's the world as a pretty messed up place.

Who knows why there is such an increase in allergies, cancers, deficiencies, autism, ADHD, etc., but i think the first place that we can correct any issues is by protecting pregnancy and birth.

As I have been apprenticing over the last two years I am developing a connection between the mother-baby bond and how I can protect that. In that pairing, I am still removed. Maybe one day I will be part of the trinity that includes the midwife, right now though I am content in observing this powerful connection a mother holds with her growing baby.

I came to midwifery in a very pragmatic way. I'm sure I've said this before, but it was a choice. Well it was a suggestion made to me that felt right, and once I accepted it within my heart the path opened to me with great ease.

I'm not sure if this makes me disconnected or more objective. Having not experienced birth that is. Never having felt the weight and movement in my womb of a growing baby.

We recently had a mother who didn't take care of herself the greatest throughout her pregnancy, but was determined to have a homebirth. She was committed and her faith in God strong. It was the first time I saw a women hemorrhage. It was nothing that could not be handled in the home, no transfusion required, nothing too emergent, but it was really for me the first time in that situation.

I found that it didn't bother me at all. It was what it was and we did what needed to be done.

We have had a few dystocia where the baby needed a bit more help into this world, but again all things that were managed quickly, efficiently and with love by my midwife. I get freaked out in these situations. Babies to me are so delicate. I don't have personal experience with them. I've babysat. But really most of that was decades or more ago and really doesn't not apply to the newborn, or newly born.

My sense of trust in women comes from being one. Knowing how strong we are.

What I've seen is sometimes it takes birth for a women to find her strength. That may be from an empowering homebirth where there was very little intervention or management, to an empowering response to a cesarean. What ever the cause, women are finding their strength through birth. They are also finding this strength throughout the course of their pregnancy! That is a beautiful sight. Like a blooming flower.

I find myself understanding my path, not through trying to heal my past experiences, but as a protector, educator, activist. With each mother-baby I come in contact with I am empowered. I know that there is a lot I am missing. There is that trinity that I am not currently interacting within.

However, right now I am finding my inner strength, my inner courage, my inner confidence.

I want to thank all the wonderful mothers and babies that have been part of this journey and that have allowed me to humbly attend their birth.