Being a midwife is an interesting endeavor. I am FASCINATED by all things birth related. I will NEVER forget the defining moment when I knew for a surety that I wanted to be FOREVER in the world of birth. Of course, the only reason I chose to dedicate my life to Moms and babies was because a POWERFUL woman shared with ME what that looked like and fully GAVE herself to me when I needed her most. Funny thing is….she didn’t really know me from Adam and it didn’t matter!
Her name was Joyce. I was 4 days away from my due date. My preeclampsia was becoming worrisome enough that it was time for me to have a baby. My midwife came and broke my water to induce labor. She had brought with her to my birth another midwife and an assisting midwife.
Because my water was broken to induce labor, the contractions started quite intensely within the first half hour. They were coming so strong within an hours time that I couldn’t seem to catch my breath. My blood pressure was stabilizing some but the strength and duration of the contractions were so powerful, I remember thinking I just wasn’t gonna make it.
At the time when I seemed I just couldn’t go any longer, Joyce proceeded to come over and gently massage my lower back. She whispered softly in my ear that I was doing WONDERFULLY and to keep up my strength by relaxing and opening. She spoke gently of what I was doing (the process of actually birthing my child) and then talked of colors and images that helped me to stay calm and present in my birth experience.
Even now as I describe what took place, words can’t bring true justice to the experience. One small paragraph above just doesn’t cut it. Truthfully, It was if I was drowning and someone saved my life. It felt no different to me. But this was THAT moment when I KNEW. I knew part of my purpose in this life time was to uplift and inspire women to see and really KNOW their true potential and power especially in the realm of childbearing.
That was what Joyce did for me. She didn’t take away my pain. She didn’t fix anything or make anything better. She didn’t save me from myself in any way. In fact, she did quite the opposite. In a sense, all she did was hold up a mirror and said LOOK! All of a sudden with her help and her by my side, I saw WHO I really was and what I was capable of and what I was currently doing. I found a LOVE for myself and what I was doing like I’d ever felt before.
Here I was truly feeling like I was failing in every way during my pregnancy and now my birth….and here comes this women….an average women….just like you or me, who decides she sees something in me she recognizes I’m not seeing and she knows by showing it to me, my world will be FOREVER changed. That when I see who she is seeing, I will no longer fight my circumstance or question what I’m doing.
She sees that with her support, I will open and become enlightened in my situation. She sees that with her support, I will gracefully relax into the ecstasy of birth and feel one with the experience. She sees that with her support, I might leave the experience truly “seeing” this part of me that she sees and then take THAT out into the world for the rest of my life.
She sees that her support will stimulate a new understanding of who I really am and how this experience will infiltrate itself into every other future action or choice I make. Lastly, and most importantly, she sees that the change I make really has NOTHING to do with her. She was merely gifted the opportunity to be part of the transformation by serving in a way she felt inspired. But….By giving she is also gifted transformation within herself. Just like the laboring woman, the midwife is also FOREVER changed by the experience. The midwife has opened herself in such a way that her system resonates at the same vibration as the laboring women. She is expansive and enlightened as well. Seeing parts of herself she also knew never existed before.
Here’s how I see it….Every women is a MIDWIFE. Hell, for that matter, I’ve seen MANY a husband or partner a midwife as well. My sweet friends who just delivered their twins, her husband is absolutely a midwife. He did everything that I usually do or would do. Just because he supposedly doesn’t have credentials or education, he did a midwife’s job and he did SUPERBLY, mind you. In my opinion, he did it better than I ever could.
Why, you ask? How could he do it better than me? Because he did EVERYTHING his wife wanted. He listened to her in labor. He respected her experience and watched and waited to make sure he was as present as she needed him. He heeded his own personal wisdom and intuition to know exactly how to create the IDEAL birth experience for both of them.
The truth is….we are all here to support, help, uplift, encourage, empower and enlighten each other. We ALL have the ability to change forever our perspectives of ourselves through the LOVE of someone else. I may have the official midwife name but I do something no different than many, many people in our world are doing. Midwifery, for me, is just my avenue for change.
I long for peace within myself and outside of myself. I will keep striving to do my part to create tranquility in the birth environment, holding hope that the whole system/psyche of that baby is one of gentility and serenity. That baby then carries that sense of trust and well being into the rest of his/her existence. Our world will be a dramatically different place when each and every baby is bathed and born in those positive vibrations and emotions.
My hope and prayer is that by the time a women is ready to bring the new life creation into our world, she will have already seen the POWER within her. That though she may still need comfort and support during her birth experience, that she sees who she REALLY is and NEVER forgets it. Imagine a world where we ALL saw our gifts, helped to support those gifts in a positive way, and then held that space of love and acceptance for ourselves and others. The world would be a WHOLLY different place. Let’s create that WORLD through all our midwifery efforts with kindness and compassion for ALL of our earthly brothers, sisters and family.
In Peace,
Rachel
Awe shucks… Thanks Rachael.