Ho’oponopono
Ho’oponopono I’m sorry Please Forgive Me I thank you I love you Me singing Ho’oponopono on guitar She was 18 years old and recently married. Newly pregnant, she had jumped the fence between Zimbabwe and South Africa with her husband and settled in the Red Hill informal settlement near where I live. Traditionally in her family, women give birth at home with the local Anamboya in attendance. (Anamboya literally translates as granny midwife – and many of the attending Anamboya are the labouring woman’s grandmother. Or her mother. Or aunt. Or sister.) There is a deep trust in this community of nature and the birthing process. And a great faith in God and a very supportive church community. There is also quite a mistrust of the medical world and medicines in general – healing is often left to herbs and prayer and God’s will. This young woman wanted to birth at home and when her sister in law told her about me her husband made contact. I visited her for regular check ups at her home. Her sister in law would translate for us. Her English was not very good. When she was 41 weeks pregnant, she went for a check-up at our back up hospital, as they had suggested an ultrasound if she went post her due date. She was afraid to go as she had heard of many women being coerced into unnecessary cesareans. But I reassured her that all was well with her baby and that it would just be a standard check-up. That she could call me from the hospital if she had any questions or did not understand something. That she would soon be home, her mind at rest that all was well and that we could then wait for her baby boy who would trigger his labour soon. She went. Trusting me. At the visit she was told she needed to be induced. She had gone alone. Not her husband nor her sister in law were with her to help her understand and translate. Her phone’s battery had died and no one allowed her to recharge it to call one of us. She was induced on her own with no one familiar with her. They did not even know. After a failed induction she was given a caesarean and greeted her baby boy on her own. Her husband and I only found out after the fact. This is not a story to point fingers at our public health system. I am fully aware that not every pregnant woman walking into a public health facility is treated this way. Personally, I feel that our health system is very good here in the Western Cape of South Africa and I trust the hospitals we access in a medical emergency. There are many dedicated and passionate people working South Africa’s health system. I truly honour the service you provide and the work that you do. But I do feel that the fact that this woman was young, a refugee, alone, did not speak English, counted against her and made it all to easy to manipulate and coerce her. I write this because I feel her story needs to be told and because I am sorry. I suppose I am asking for forgiveness. Ho’oponopono I’m sorry Please Forgive Me I thank you I love you (Ho’oponopono is a Hawaiian prayer for forgiveness, healing and taking full responsibility for one’s actions.) Me singing Ho’oponopono on...
Read MoreThe Healing Ripple Effect of a Beautiful Birth…
Sometimes being a birth attendant can be disheartening… It can feel as though one is working against a great big machine…birthing factories which seem to extract babies and eject traumatised women back into a system which does not acknowledge their experience and expects them to ‘get on with things.’ She has a healthy baby after all… Sometimes it can feel like what is the fucking point? What difference do I feel I can make? Attending one birth at a time…sitting vigil…a guardian of a process…what difference can little old me make against the machine, the tide…just a little drop in the churning ocean? Sometimes it feels like it is too late…women are broken…they feel broken and that the system is just too strong…too set in its ways… But then… I feel the tangible ripple healing effect of a beautiful birth. Wow! When a woman births in her own power it is as though that drop in the insurmountable ocean becomes a source of rippling, healing, underground, light that bursts through her family, friends, community, and heals on a subtle palpable level. It is truly transformative. The power and oxytocin and love that she releases are beyond magic. And yet again, my faith and trust are restored in this work. I feel truly honoured and blessed and humbled to be able, in my own small way, be part of this great healing. Thank...
Read MoreOn Children
I remember hearing this poem by Kahlil Gibran as a young child being performed as a song at one of the Re-evaluation counselling weekends my mother used to run. Two women performed the song, ‘Your children are not your children…’ The song frightened me and I clung to my mother’s skirt. I did not want anyone telling me that I did not belong to my mother. I wanted to belong to her forever… But now as a mother with children in their teens and coming into their teens, this poem resonates with me more and more: Your children are not your children. They are the sons and daughters of Life’s longing for itself. They come through you but not from you, And though they are with you yet they belong not to you. You may give them your love but not your thoughts, For they have their own thoughts. You may house their bodies but not their souls, For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow, which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams. You may strive to be like them, but seek not to make them like you. For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday. You are the bows from which your children as living arrows are sent forth. The archer sees the mark upon the path of the infinite, and He bends you with His might that His arrows may go swift and far. Let your bending in the archer’s hand be for gladness; For even as He loves the arrow that flies, so He loves also the bow that is stable. I remember being a young mother of 21 and my firstborn on day 3 lying on my chest, milk drunk and fast asleep. It felt as though a shooting white light of love connected us at that moment…my beating heart connected to his. It was the most blissful moment of deep deep love and I knew at that moment that would be connected in this way forever. So as he grows older and his voice deepens that true deep connection never changes…it is always there…it is a trust and a love of the deepest knowing. From the moment they are born our children are moving away from us…and it is trusting that and them that is the key… ...
Read MoreMartha is almost due
Last week Linde, her daughter Rosie, and I visited Martha at her home on Red Hill for a checkup. Linde is a student midwife and will be attending Martha’s birth with me. Angie also had a check-up, and a woman called Sara, who came for advice on having a vaginal birth after a previous Caesar was also there. She has since successfully birthed at our local hospital and is very happy. Lois, who previously attended Jacky Bloemraad de Boer’s postnatal care specialist course also came and Linde and I showed her the steps of an antenatal check up – she is super keen to become a midwife. You can see her big smile and enthusiasm on the pics attached. Women and children gathered in Martha’s cosy home, the fireplace making it warm. Children sat and crawled on the floor while the women chatted. Each checkup took place privately in Martha’s bedroom. Martha is due in a couple of weeks and she feels ready to have her baby now…for now, we wait and see… Please continue to share and support this project. We are trying to ensure loving midwifery care for every...
Read MoreBirth is…
Birth is… Primitive and primal Like taking a shit Everyone does it What’s the big fucking deal? Birth is… Beautiful and ecstatic Like a colourful multi-dimensional orgasm Opening the petals of a flower Birth is… Blissful and calm Like an untouched lake Glistening in the morning light Birth is… Painful and powerful Like the death of a loved one Ripping open your heart Birth is… Lifeforce passing through you Like a bolt of lightning Cracking open the earth Birth is… Quiet and ancient Like the stars on a moonless night Or your breath as you sit in absolute silence Or like the waves on the beach as they roll in an out In and out In and out Birth is…...
Read MoreLoving Midwifery Care for Every Woman
Access to good, personalised and loving care should be a basic human right for any pregnant woman. Unfortunately, this is not the reality for most. I offer my services as a home birth midwife to the women in and around my community, who would like to be able to access this service but who cannot afford it. Up to now I have been doing this free of charge but unfortunately, this is not sustainable and I write this to ask for your support. I have set up a Patreon page so that you can help pledge your monthly support via my Patreon page. I am offering home birth services to women in my local community of Red Hill Settlement who cannot afford it but who would like to birth at home under the loving care of an independent midwife. I aim to raise $800 per month through pledges. With this, I will be able to take care of one woman per month, ensuring good pre and postnatal care, attendance during her labour and birth, as well as ensure that her baby is registered with our home affairs and clinic. Costs covered will be for my on-call time, birth equipment, childcare, petrol, and general car maintenance. You can pledge anything between $1 – $50 per month and each contribution will receive a gift in return. To see my Patreon page and to pledge your support please see my page here I live near an informal settlement. It lies on the slopes of Red Hill and is made up of tin shacks that home families that hail from rural Western and Eastern Cape, Malawi and Zimbabwe, amongst others. It is a beautiful, tight-knit community who support each other and I have been honoured to serve many of the women in the community as midwife and friend. The Shona Zimbabwean community has a strong tradition of home birth and most have given birth before back home with their mother, or aunt, or grandmother in attendance – in other words, most have a traditional midwife as a family member and giving birth at home is the norm. Unfortunately, their birthing experiences once here in South Africa, have been far from positive and they tend to avoid hospitals for this reason. Many have sought out my care and I have attended them in this community – checking on them pre and postnatally, as well as attending them in labour and birth. Angela has given me permission to share her photo and story: Angela contacted me in her second trimester because she was concerned that even though she was over twenty weeks pregnant, she could not feel her baby moving yet. She had been for one checkup at her local hospital in the early part of her pregnancy but found it to be too traumatic after she was not allowed to bring her two-year-old son into the consultation and had to leave him outside while he screamed. Needless to say, both she and he were traumatised by the experience and she asked if I could come and do a check up on her. I visited her at home and at first, had to navigate her son’s trauma around my medical equipment (he would scream whenever I pulled out my blood pressure monitor). I introduced him to the equipment, kept him close to his mother and taught him to massage her belly with sweet smelling massage oil. After a couple of visits, he became my ally and bag carrying assistant. At Angela’s first visit at her home, we were able to detect the sweet little heartbeat of her daughter…she...
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