This I Believe

I believe women can birth their own babies. I believe in the power of birth as a transforming experience for women, a rite of passage that helps women understand their inner strength and prepare them for motherhood in a way few other experiences can. Most young women in America today think that birth is an impossible physical feat, only to be accomplished by the very few. But my experience is different.

Time and again I see women doing amazing things when they allow their bodies to perform as designed. A week ago, I had the honor of seeing a first-time mom and her husband come to the birth center at the normal time of 4 cm dilation, and have a lovely birth of an 8#6oz girl less than two hours later. In the same week, a woman who had had four hospital births learned for the first time how to work with her body during back labor, and have a beautiful, unmedicated water birth, much sooner than with prior births. She and her husband describe their experience as one of the most romantic times of their lives. I had a mom wait until I returned from Sri Lanka after the tsunami to deliver her twin boys at the hospital, three days before her due date, both vaginally even though they were 7#4oz and 8#14oz, the second one breech. No, she did not have a premature delivery or a cesarean or even stitches, and her children nursed right away and went home from the hospital the next day, just like most of the twins I have cared for. I have clients who describe their labors and births as fun. When I mention such descriptions to most of my clients, they really don’t believe they could have the same thing, and in some cases, they don’t believe me at all! Despite the skyrocketing U.S. cesarean rate, I still believe most women can birth their own babies.

I quit my administrative job in my late 40’s to cross the country, incur a large debt to study at Yale and become a nurse-midwife, and I have created a licensed, accredited free-standing birth center to complement my hospital practice. I have put my time, my energy, my income, my mind and my heart behind my belief: I DO believe that women can birth their babies!