I am a midwife

I am a midwife. Midwife means "with woman". Midwives are women who assist other women in giving birth to their babies. They educate them, empower them, and provide knowledge, guidance and support as well as the skills of their trade as needed. They help other women create sacred space within which to have their babies. Midwives are as their name implies, "with woman."

I love being "with woman." I love being "with woman" as she labors. I love being "with woman" when she asks for a cool, wet cloth to wipe her sweaty brow. I love being "with woman" when she holds on to me to steady herself during another wave of pain, as she buries her head in my neck, moaning until the pain subsides. I love being "with woman" when she grabs the father of the baby by the chest hairs and yells, "YOU! YOU DID THIS TO ME!" I love being "with woman" when she is pushing, grunting, screaming her baby out and looks at me with daggers saying, "Can't you just take this baby out, N O W!" I love being "with woman" when her slippery, wet baby emerges from her body as she shrieks with relief and reaches down to embrace it for the first time. I love being "with woman" when, holding her newly birthed baby, the mother looks lovingly at her partner and tells him how she cherishes him. I love being "with woman"!

Being a midwife has impacted my life in many ways. It has become for me a profound expression of my feminist beliefs; beliefs that honor the true worth of "women's work". Work that is woman's alone--the work of birthing, breastfeeding, and mothering.

Midwifery is a political act. Being "with woman" helps women reclaim the power over their own bodies. The issue of safety has been used for years to legitimize medical intervention and control over women's bodies as they labor and give birth. When a woman gives birth at home, it is a demonstration of civil and medical disobedience that affirms the legitimacy of low-tech birth.

Midwifery is a spiritual act. Being "with woman" is more than just a physical presence. It requires attending to and respecting the magnificent energy and holiness at every birth.

Midwifery is a social act. Being "with woman" often involves many members of the birthing mother's family, her partner's family and often lots of friends.

Midwifery is a multicultural act. Women from many different cultures call on a midwife for assistance. Not only must I be sensitive to culture, I am often asked to participate fully in birthing ceremonies. Examples include such things as pouring water from the Ganges river on the baby's head as it emerges into the world or “laying hands” on the woman's pregnant belly as God is called upon to be present.

Midwifery is a physical act. The physicality of birthing and assisting with birthing is second to none. There is blood, sweat (lots of sweat), and tears; pushing, pulling, holding, supporting, watching and waiting.

Midwifery is an emotional act. I have never been so deeply touched as I have with my own birthings and the birthings I have had the good fortune to attend, either as midwife, assistant, photographer or friend.

Midwifery is an act of faith. It is faith in the ability of a woman's body to do what it was created to be able to do and faith in the process of birth itself.

We are all connected through the miracle of birth. Birth connects humans through time, distance, generations, countries and cultures. There is a ripple effect to birthing; it touches everyone in some way or other. The experience of being born may linger in the subconscious or in our body-memory, but it is present. The collective unconscious memories of the birthed and birthing becomes a universal, shared experience that binds us together and is capable of empowering us.

Every one of us has been given birth to; we have all been born. How we are birthed affects us profoundly in every aspect of our lives. How we are birthed affects how we cope with life from that point on. How we are birthed and how we choose to give birth impacts our entire culture, our relationship to the earth and our future as a species.

Birth is one of the most significant and consequential events in life. Therefore, I feel very strongly that every woman must have the freedom and support to give birth with dignity, surrounded by the people of her choosing, in the place of her choice.

I was so profoundly impacted by my own births, by the manner in which I was treated during my births, and by how much control the institution was able to exert over me, regardless of my desires. I have experienced first-hand the feeling of helplessness within the hospital system that subordinates the needs of the birthing mother to its own procedures and policies.

Shortly after my babies were born I promised myself that I would become involved in the childbirth movement that was active at that time. I didn't want women to have to endure such horrendous situations as I did while having their babies. I wanted to empower women to have their babies with dignity, to choreograph the birth the way they want it, not just be at the mercy of hospital policies and physician preferences.

For the last thirty years I have been involved in helping birthing women in a variety of ways: birth photographer, childbirth educator, nurse, lay midwife, doula, and lactation consultant.

Although I no longer am able to be present at many births, through teaching I am still able to be “with woman” in a very significant way. If I can help a woman fully realize the extent of her inherent creative power, to access the deep awareness of her body and tap into her inner wisdom as she labors and gives birth, then I am “with woman”. I am a midwife.