There are some women that you just cannot wait to see in labour -
When the phone rang at 2:10 am I was so thrilled, I practically floated (speedily) out of bed and found myself shivering with delighted anticipation as I brushed my teeth in the ice-cold, eerie-quiet bathroom.

In the narrow back room, heaters glowed dim light off the bare-board walls and seeped warmth into the hanging sheaths of red and blue fabric as we sat ringed - 4 women; mother, midwife, friend, me – around the quiet expanse of birth pool, paying homage to the new motherhood unfolding within.

In the quietest, pale hours of the morning we all found ourselves weary and doubting. Having assessed her myself, I hoped fevrently that no aspect of my ego had prevented me from getting a second opinion that might cast a differing light on the situation. As it was – we were all caught in those long breathless hours of birth. The time when hope is thin – hope that a woman’s strength will last, hope that we have encouraged her rightly, hope that the slippery, sweet baby will meld it’s right way through the dark tightness of being born. And most of all, hope that the seeming impossiblity of making way for a whole other being will be triumphed over.

When her wise-eyed and calm mother quietly pulled me aside to ask “will this be alright?” I found myself suddenly struggling under an enormous weight of trust and responsibility. How can I say yes? or no? or even more difficult – ‘I do not know’. Waves of humility washed over me as I looked back into her quiet, dark face and said ‘there’s nothing that makes me think otherwise right now’.

My preceptor tells me that practicing good, true midwifery makes one wise. And while I do not profess wisdom, merely the hope of it, I do believe that I have learnt, or discovered in some small way how to hold the birth space still and let the unbelieveable occur.

I procured a spoonful of honey to slip between labouring, exhausted teeth, I crouched down low – to the brim of the water – and held her eyes firmly in mine and told her she was ok, her body was strong, we would not leave her, we would be right along side her as she plunged into the lonely, fierce power that pushes a baby out.

An hour later, she held her hands to an underwater head – lifted them apart as if in supplication to the universe and then raised her incredible baby back towards her heart. For a moment I glanced away from my work to bask in the glow on her new-mama face.

crazy, beautiful.

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