Following my Midwifery in the USA experience, read my Global Village Midwives Advent Birth story:
Birth Story 8 –Working with a Midwife in the USA
Picture the scene: a mother, exhausted more than she knew possible, reaches down to take her baby from the surgeon she was determined never to meet. Tears and camera flashes from her family members who surround her at the head of the bed, as a proud mother becomes a proud grandmother.
Two weeks before, visiting her midwife in the front room of her home in a suburb of Atlanta, explained to me why she had chosen a different path from the regular Georgian mother. In the state of Georgia, to see anyone other than a hospital obstetrician during your pregnancy, birth and postnatal period was considered out of the ordinary, ‘hippy’, even unclean. Any midwife with a CPM qualification (Certified Professional Midwife) was technically acting illegally in the eyes of the state government, and disgustingly in the eyes of it’s population. Through personal sacrifice and outstanding belief in normal birth however, CPMs ran small home practises throughout the area by jumping loopholes in the law. It was in one of these practises where this woman (a registered nurse) had chosen to have her baby.
‘I don’t think you understand. At my local hospital, they have up to a 70% induction rate, and a 50% c-section rate. I don’t want that. I know that my body can do this. I know it can, and it will do it better at home. Women have been doing this for millions of years. I can do this.’ She had told me intently. A well-rehearsed speech that she must have told everyone who had questioned her choice of birth, including her apprehensive looking mother in the corner. There was no denying that this was a well-informed woman. She could quote statistics from all over the world to support her arguments for a normal home birth. And that was what she was going to have. No ifs, no buts. Her strength of mind was admirable; however, anything but that would have been a failure in her eyes. ‘I can do this. And I will.’ Were her parting words to me as she left her last antenatal appointment at 41 weeks pregnant.
So this is why, as I watched this woman take her baby from the surgeon, after 30 hours of long, hard, labour with little progress, I held my breath. A day and a night of fierce determination, of following her birth plan to the letter, of inspirational strength until the very end. Of regular examinations, of changing positions, of sighs and encouragement and eventually an unhappy baby. All amounted to this. The very last thing that she had wanted.
As I finally let go of my breath, I looked to her and her new baby girl, ready to comfort the heartbreak and the disappointment of not achieving her goals.
Heart-breaking smiles. Goals achieved. Pride in her eyes. ‘I did it.’
I learned a lot that day.
3rd Year Student - England University
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Personally managed births to go: 20
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