September Snapshots

There are moments that will stick with me forever from this September:

-- Baby Ryan's parents: laughing and smiling as he entered the world so quietly, so gently.

-- What autonomy, what I value most in my work, looks like: Client F, who labored through the night and was admitted at 9cm, said to me: "An epidural was always a part of the plan. I'm not ready to deliver yet, and I need to sleep before I start pushing."

-- The power of love from a visitor: as the long night stretched into the day which also wore on, with virtually no change in the cervix whatsoever, Client A's best friend came into the room. The husband and best friend embraced the mother in an intimate circle and simply held her, overcoming the resignation in the room with love.

-- The muscular, sinewy strength of a laboring mother, whose low moans began ending in grunty pushes, reaffirming that birth is the most primal of all instincts.

Thank you to all my September families, for the privilege to participate.

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It's National Midwifery Week!

Please celebrate National Midwifery Week by honoring your midwife. What is ONE word that comes to mind when you think about your birth experience with your midwife?

I choose collaborative.

And to add, I will thank her again and again for how we worked together on my pregnancy and my daughter's birth, but also for how she shaped my work as a doula.

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