The very first home-born baby to meet my hands on exit now has a brother.

Edged onto alert by a slightly-over-40-weeks mama who was slightly-over her pregnancy I snapped awake at the fingertip tap of my preceptor at my bedroom door – 3:50 am.
We spent early labour rubbing our eyes at her kitchen table, sipping tea and pausing occasionally to observe her rocking pas-de-deux with the chair.

Night lengthened into morning and the intensity increased without settling into that familiar rhythm that all birth attendants nod happily to see.
So, I offered a check – and now that I am a final year student it was my check – not a practice to be confirmed by my preceptor. A hold-your-breath and pray-you’re-feeling-right moment.  7cm on one side, 8-9cm on the other. Not really what I wanted to be feeling. *

Working a baby down the birth canal is by rights an unbelieveable physical feat (that women do every minute of the day!). Working one into the world with its head slightly cocked to one side just makes it that much rockier a journey.
And so we spent the bright summer morning enclosed in the dark little room at the back of the house; encouraging – water and rescue remedy and position changes and continuing on past where the limits seemed to be on to bravery and sheer, stunning, monumental determination.

Finally the epic task reached its peak and one pale-fuzzed head began the slowest ooze out into daylight – a push to the eyebrows, then one to the bridge of the nose, two for the nose, another for the lips and an incredible three for the chin. I know all this because I was counting, hands poised, calling out to his mama to reach down into someplace deep and unfathomable and find even more strength. And hoping with every tensed muscle in my body that my midwifery skills had not and would not fail me.

And then, a quick swivel of his sweet head and there was the shoulder – eager and slippery and then his body suddenly in my hands – one last push for his hips (just to really prove he had reservations about coming in) and there he was born, onto his mother’s sweat-soaked, awestruck chest.
It was hard to tell who was leading the chorus of joyfully relieved sobs – his daddy or I. My preceptor hugged me from behind with her clean, gloved hands.
The best thing about midwifery is that every birth lets you be born again. A little bit – over and over again.

You caught all our children!

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