Sometimes I think that I know nothing about birth - not only the unpredictability of it but the sheer mystery and wonder of it all. If anything has ever strengthened my relationship with the higher power, with what I call God, it has been my profession. I remember walking out of a class of embryology when I was a nurse-midwifery student, and saying that was probably the best spiritual lecture I ever heard. To watch the concept of conception, the multiplication of cells, their movement, the wondrous time clock that works with the ever so slight variation from one individual to another which makes us individuals, you have to realize that there has to be something bigger than us that oversees it all. As midwives, we continue to care for pregnant women, to watch the uterus grow, to feel the baby. Can you imagine the wonder that a mother feels as she feels her baby move? Let alone us, who put our hands on that uterus and watch the baby move? She is listening to its heart, watching her uterus get larger, knowing that there's something in her growing, and that when the time comes that it's fully made, she experiences the wonder of birth.
In Spanish they call it nacer a la luz - to birth into the light. To come into the light is such a fabulous idea because to birth even into the dark is not as dark as where you were. It's so fabulous to see the light, to see somehow that a new life has occurred. I like to watch the time-lapse photography where they show the unfolding of a flower, or a seed bursting into the growth of a plant. Birth is like that ultimate coming out, that spectacular approach on the world again.
There was a saying that was going around a few years ago that I really loved, and I've quoted it often. "Every baby born is God's way of saying one more time - that he is not going to give up on this world." I think the atmosphere that we can create around birth is so important because it's like being in the presence of the holy. There has to be some reverence, some excitement for it. It can go both ways, I've gone to church myself, to a black liturgy where I stayed for two and a half hours and felt like I'd been there fifteen minutes, rejoiced, danced, felt so alive. I've also gone to church where it was darkened and incense was there, and soft music played and everything was extremely reverential, but there was no difference in the sense that the holy was present.
I think that there is no one way to be at birth. Each birthing must be unique, and it is in that very uniqueness that we have a unique individual, that we create a unique atmosphere. That atmosphere obviously has to be created around the mother and the father and all the rest of the family, with what they think and how we relate. I love the way that a birth center is able to do that, time after time. I remember saying to a woman who had come from the northern part of Texas, and had moved down to our area and was working as a bank teller. Her experience with her last two births had not been in a birth center. I said to her, "What in the world ever made you come to a birth center? And, why do you like it here?" She said, "Well, I came because somebody told me that it was a nice place to come to and they had been here", and that's the general thing you hear, but what she said next really stumped me. She said "The reason that I like it is because you know my name." I was taken with that idea that people put so much importance on the fact that we know their names, that we know who they are. This makes sense for when you know the women you care for by name it is logical that they will trust you to stand beside them, birth with them, give the kind of support they need, and be there for this really sacred moment, la luz- when the light is there - when birth has occurred. We can all stand in awe or excitement or enthusiasm or expectation of birth. These are things we want. However, we are also prepared to see the problems that need to be handled, we're right there, zip, zip, we're right on it. To be trained that way, to know that you can do these things, gives families a sense that they're in a safe area. A place where families can be confident, because the people who care for them are competent, know their names, know who they are, and have created a special safe place for them for this nez sur la luz to happen.