My Journey to Midwifery

Mar 11

I have been a mother for 9 years and along that journey I have lost and found myself 5 different times. The similarities in each of those times is that I followed what brought me joy in each one of them. Sometimes it was easier to follow that joy and other times it was a bigger challenge. I always felt like I was chasing a dream that I didn’t have a clear vision on what it even was. Like a light at the end of a very foggy tunnel. All I knew was that to get there, I had to just keep walking.

I am not there yet, and perhaps never will be but what I have come to learn is that the destination isn’t really what it's about. The change and transformation that takes place as I continue walking is where the joy has evolved from.

So WHY this work? Why Midwifery?

This work of helping women and their partners awaken their power through radical birth has been a calling that started as a young high school student. I was always fascinated with the way a woman's body changes physically to grow a human and then give birth to them. Midwifery wasn’t something I knew existed at that time so I was on the path of becoming a labor and delivery nurse. As I grew and learned what midwives were I decided that was what I wanted to be. I even looked at moving to Ireland to attend midwifery school because I didn’t even know that was offered here in America.

That never happened, but I did start working as a medical assistant with a family medical practitioner that also practiced obstetrics. The red thread that connects it all was being woven and I never knew.

I became pregnant with my first child in 2012 and I dived into giving birth unmedicated. I was all for it and had spoken to a few patients of mine that have also done this and planned to again. I watched the infamous documentary “ The Business of Being Born” The problem was that the medical team I had did not believe that to be a good idea and encouraged me with fear that an epidural would be best for my first birth. So out the window went all of my education and preparation as I allowed others opinions to mold my experience.

Thankfully the birth of my first baby went really well! I say “thankfully” but it clouded the way I prepared for, or didn’t prepare, for the birth of my second child. That is the downside of having a dreamy first experience; we tend to think that is how it will always be when in fact, each birth story is different just as each human is different.

I did no preparation for this 2nd birth. No reading, no movement, nothing. It was a 360 degree difference. I even scheduled an induction; not because I didn’t trust my body but because we were in Texas with no family to help and had to arrange it to fit when I would have help.

Let's just say my son’s birth was a shock to my system, and his. That experience was another one on the red thread of connection to the point I am now. It showed me the implications of not educating myself, of not understanding my options and using my voice to say what I needed. It showed me how ignoring my gut did neither of us any good.

After his birth I felt lost and had to do a lot of digging to find myself again. The red thread connected me to a midwife where I was shown how it could be different. Just how education and awareness of self could make birth an empowering experience. I was determined to never let any woman feel the way I did in that labor and birth experience. That day a fire inside of my heart and soul was lit and still burns today.

In a long winded way that maybe explains how I got here and a piece of my why.

My why has been manifesting for a long time, and is now blooming as I see just how women are taking back their autonomy, their voices, their power!

Each birth I attend shows me something new. I get to witness an undoing and reconfiguring of what it means to give birth to a human and inturn yourself again and again. As I enter each birth empty of preconceptions I get to be filled with new information, information from the mother and the baby as they are woven together through each contraction and emergence.

I am here as a vessel to guide and be guided by the ancient ways of birth
I am here to encourage resilience in the mind and body of women and their partners
I am here to bare witness to the transfiguration of becoming parents
I am here to be taught the primitive ways we nurture our babies
I am here to awaken power through education
I am here to break chains and free voices
I am here to guide through uncharted territory
I am here to follow and encourage persistence to women through their journeys
I am here because too many women are hiding from themselves. And I want to show them another way
I am here because I have lived through heartbreak, trauma, anger and shame.
I am here because my voice has been lost and found again through birth
I am here because women need women in their corner that have gone through the darkness to guide them through, to show them that they can and will be able to keep going
I am here because I know what it feels like to be lost, overwhelmed and numb
I am here because I refuse to allow anyone to tell a woman what they can and can not do in labor and birth
I am here because I refuse to allow anyone to tell a woman they know better than them
I am here because I refuse to allow women's intuition and voices to be silenced and ignored
I am here because I believe in birth
I believe in women
I believe in babies
I am here because it all starts with the way we are treated in birth and postpartum
I am here because it matters, you matter, your baby matters
I am here because my soul continues to guide me back again and again
I am here to hold women
I am here because I need to be