Why I Chose a Midwife.

My mother delivered me at home in 1981 with only my father and a midwife present. It's a beautiful story, one she told me many times growing up. I loved listening to the intimacy in her voice as she would remember that night. In my mind, I could imagine the Douglas fir trees rustling all around our cozy little house in the middle of winter as a new life was born. My very first memory as a child is of my mother in labor. Not with me, of course, but with my younger brother. I remember being in the room with her while she lay on the bed, moaning in pain. It scared me, so I ran out of the room into the arms of my grandmother. Before I ran out, though, I recall my mother reassuring me, telling me "It's okay, honey, it's a good pain ... mommy's okay." And she was. My brother was delivered not long after into the loving hands of another midwife.

Perhaps it was these stories and memories that made me know from a young age that I would deliver my children under the guidance of a midwife. Perhaps, though, it was also what I learned in nursing school, at Johns Hopkins University, one of the best nursing and medical schools in the nation. I learned that in a normal pregnancy, home births are just as safe as hospital births. I learned that having a midwife made you less likely to have a cesarean section or epidural. I learned that pain medications DO affect the baby and mother. I learned that using continuous fetal heart monitoring on mothers does NOTHING to better birth outcomes ... it only increases risk of having a cesarean. I learned that the only reason mothers are placed in the lithotomy position during labor is because it is most comfortable for the doctor who is delivering the baby ... and that the lithotomy position is actually one of the most uncomfortable and least productive ways for a woman to labor. I learned that a campaign against midwives started in the early 1900s because doctors wanted their business ... and that the damage done to their reputations still rings loud and clear today, nearly 100 years later.

The more I learned, the more emotion I felt. Sometimes I felt angry. Angry that men (traditionally the doctors) would dare to intervene in a woman's most intimate and powerful work (delivering a baby). Angry at the fear tactics still used in the medical system to keep women in the hospital and out of their homes and birth clinics. Sometimes I felt sad. Sad that women are told they are not strong enough to handle the pain of birth and must be medicated. Sad that so many women miss out on the opportunity to really know their true strength as a woman. Sometimes I felt confused. Why are we allowing this to happen in our culture? Is it all about money? Is birth really that dangerous? Most of the time, however, I felt resolved. Resolved to have a midwife attend my birth and assist me in the natural delivery of my daughter. Resolved to share with others my story, which is not unique or special, but simply the story of a birth as it was for me, and my mother, and my mother's mother, and my mother's mother's mother, and my mother's mother's mother's mother.

What I did not want: 1) To be strapped to a fetal heart monitor in a hospital bed, 2) To have doctors and nurses rushing in and out of my room as I labored, 3) To be told that I needed an epidural or pain medications because it would "help me" labor better, 4) To have a plastic wrist band with my name and a number being used for identifying me, 5) To have everyone staring at a monitor that told them when a contraction is beginning or ending (as if I didn't know already), 6) To have some person I did not know telling me to "push" and counting to 10 for me, 7) To be surrounded by blue surgical scrubs and masks with a bright light shining on my yoni during the most miraculous, amazing, and powerful moment of my life. No thank you.

And so I chose differently. I chose a midwife. And I wrote out my birth plan. And we talked and connected over my pregnancy. And she came to my house when my water broke. And she slept on the futon while I labored. And she drove to the hospital with me (because of insurance reasons, she is no longer allowed to do home deliveries) when I was 8 centimeters. And she stroked my back and legs. She walked with me to the shower. She whispered in my ear. And she gently lifted my newborn daughter onto my bare chest when it was time. And I felt powerful and beautiful and strong and ALIVE. Not a drop of anything but my own oxytocin rushing through my blood, and the blood of my daughter.

If we are someday blessed with another pregnancy and another birth, I will again choose a midwife. Only this time I will not choose one because of my mother's stories or the things I learned in nursing school. This time I will choose a midwife because of my own story. A story I will someday share with my own daughter. As it should be.