Seasons of a Birthkeeper
When birth work was first ignited in me, I was a young woman entering my own childbearing years. I was learning about pregnancy, birth and motherhood not only through books and teachers, but through my own body and through my own babies. My children and my work grew alongside one another. The seasons of my family and the seasons of my work became deeply intertwined. Now, almost three decades later, something feels different. My children are grown. They are young adults making their own way in the world. They are now around the age that I was when I was becoming a mother myself. As I look at them, I realise that I, too, am standing at the threshold of a new season. Not yet a grandmother, perhaps, but certainly no longer the young mother who first stepped onto this path. This week I also quietly moved into inactive status with my professional midwifery certification. It was not a decision made in a moment. Like many decisions that matter, it unfolded over time. There were practical realities, changing requirements, and many months of trying to find a way forward. But alongside all of that was a growing sense of acceptance. Sometimes life gently asks us to pause, not because we are giving up, but because we are being invited to listen more deeply. Although there is definitely an aspect of experiencing the loss of something I worked hard to achieve, it also feels like an opportunity to stop for a while and ask a different question. Who am I, in relation to birth, in this season of my life? For many years I have cared deeply about building bridges between different worlds. I have been grateful to study and work within traditional, academic and medical spaces. Each has taught me something valuable. Each has helped me understand birth from a different perspective. I have appreciated being able to move between those worlds, and I remain deeply thankful for the opportunities my professional certification has opened for me. But over recent years I have also found myself reflecting on something else. Can the deepest work of birth ever be fully held by institutions? Not because institutions are without value. They have an important role. Good legislation can protect women. Education can deepen understanding. Professional standards can help create safer care. Yet the healing of birth itself begins elsewhere. It begins in homes. In quiet rooms. In relationships. With women and with babies. In communities willing to sit beside one another with humility, love and presence. I don’t know whether I will return to active certification. I don’t know what new forms this work may take. Birth has taught me many things over the years. One of the greatest has been that life cannot always be forced into our timelines. There are moments for action. And there are moments for waiting. There are seasons for pushing. And there are seasons for allowing something new to gather itself before it enters the world. Perhaps this is one of those seasons. And for now, that feels like that is...
Read MoreStories are teachers. Stories are guides.
Last week I found myself immersed in stories. Within the Ubuntu Birth Attendant Reflection Spiral we began sharing the stories that have shaped us as birth attendants. A few days later, within the Silent Birthkeeper, we spent our session reflecting on birth stories themselves and the many ways they continue to teach us. It reminded me that stories are one of the oldest ways knowledge has been passed from one birth attendant to another. Stories are teachers. And they are guides. Long before textbooks and research papers, there were stories. The woman who laboured for days before her baby was born. The breech baby who suddenly flipped in mid labour and surprised everyone by being born head first. The haemorrhage that looked frightening but resolved beautifully. The births that changed everything we thought we knew… These stories become part of us. They quietly shape how we think, how we respond, and what we notice when we sit beside another woman. They feed our intuition: that quiet, embodied knowing that cannot be taught in a classroom but only by sitting with birth. They deepen our gut sense as birth attendants. And they expand our understanding of what is possible. Like a tree that is slowly shaped by the elements, so too are we, as birth attendants, shaped by the births we attend. Over the years, I have learnt as much from the births that unfolded gently as I have from those that ended in heartbreak. Both have been my teachers. But stories ask something important of us. They ask us to learn without projecting. To remain open to the uniqueness of each mother and baby. To allow every birth to unfold on its own terms, rather than through the lens of the last one we witnessed. Perhaps this is why gathering together matters so much. When we share our stories, we preserve knowledge that might otherwise be lost. We remind one another that we are not carrying this work alone. And together we slowly grow not only in knowledge, but in discernment. I feel deeply grateful that the True Midwifery community continues to create spaces where these stories can be spoken, witnessed, and held with great...
Read MoreCarrying the Thread: A Soft Tribute to Michel Odent
As I prepare for my talk this coming Thursday, Peace on Earth Begins at Birth — Honouring the Work and Legacy of Michel Odent with Ruth Ehrhardt and Clara Scropetta, alongside my friend Clara Scropetta, I am filled with tender emotion.
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