Issue #1: How did you learn to trust birth?
How did you learn to trust birth?
From Alice.
WOW Alice!
Fantastic question. You kicked us off with a beauty.
You have really got me 💭 thinking. I have been thinking about this all week. How did I learn to trust to birth. 🤔 Hhmm, I don't know.
I don't remember anyone birthing when I was younger except for my older sister, and I was old enough when she birthed to be able to take in how it was 🗣 spoken about. My sister had two normal spontaneous vaginal births. I don't remember any negative stories or fear surrounding it. I just remember 🤩 excitement and anticipation. The cute snuggly 👶 babies and my sister speaking of it being exhausting and long for her first baby and quick and fast for her second and that she knew he was coming even when people around her didn't. It felt normal. It felt trustworthy.
I think the biggest thing is, I was never told to doubt it.
Off that belief, I entered into a three-year degree of Midwifery where I was taught that birth was normal. I was taught the physiological process of the birth. I was taught to be 'with women" and that birth is 🪄 magical, beautiful and normal if you leave it alone.
I was at a birth on 🎄 Christmas Eve and I was thinking about your question.
Why do I trust this?
How did I learn to trust it?
What do I trust about it?
✨ I trust women.
✨ I trust her body.
✨ I trust her intuition.
✨ I trust her strength.
✨ I trust in mother nature.
✨ I trust in physiological design.
✨ I trust babies.
✨ I trust their innate wisdom.
✨ I trust their desire to be birthed.
And I believe so deeply in their physiological design because babies don't get a class or 👩🏼🏫 education prior to birthing. They just birth. Plus, they have no external thoughts, pressure, fear. They just do what they need to do. They aren't told they can't. They know they can. They are designed too. We all are. That is how we are all here after all. We all birthed.
I trust mother 🌱 nature wouldn't flaw our physiological design, otherwise our human species wouldn't survive, and we are wired to survive. It's power, control, fear and the patriarchy that has made us believe we are flawed and to not trust birth.
As I sit here on the eve of 🎄 Christmas, soaking in the 🤓 sights, 👂 sounds and 👃 smell of birth, and all the tiny, subtle movements and moments of birth, it’s like watching a 💃 dance. The most exquisite 🩰 ballet performance you ever did see. Fine, slow, precise movements that lead to the big finale.
I used to take ballroom 💃 dancing classes as a kid and your dance was only as good as your trust in yourself, your steps and your partner. If you didn't trust in all of it, your 💃 dance would be a shit show 🤦♀️ It's the same with birth (not the shit show bit). It's that trust. It's believing in the 💃 dance of it. It's having trust in the steps. It's having trust in your partner (your 👶 baby) and most importantly having trust in yourself.
Working in the system made me 🤨 question my faith and trust. The questioning wasn't in birth or the 💃 dance of birth it was the trust of birthing in the system. It wasn't an instant thing. It chipped away at me over time. I still work within the system, but in a different capacity now and I am withdrawn from it in a sense. I couldn't let it take any more of my faith or trust. I didn't have much more to give.
Since become a homebirth Midwife, my trust for birth, women and babies has deepened to level I've never experienced before. It's warmth to my soul 🥰 I honestly have a visceral experience. To witness the 💃 dance of the most perfect partnership that could ever exist (mother and baby), the sounds, the smell, the steps. So fine and precise. It really is just like watching the ultimately 🩰 ballet performance on stage. 💥The most breathtaking dance ever!💥
What's not to trust?
Love Kate 💚