My Mundane Birth

I have always been amazed at the miracle and mundanity of birth. It is the most normal, universal experience AND the most magical and unbelievable event. And my birth was one of the mundane ones. 

I have been to around 200 births in the last 13 years. I have seen people go through incredible journeys and have heroic births. Mine was not one of those for me. My birth was simple, straight forward and very uneventful. I was at first surprised and sad about this feeling. I thought I would go on a trip and have to overcome and persevere and.. and… have one of the triumphant births I have witnessed so many times before. I thought I would get to the point where I said, “I can’t do this,” and then do it! But I never felt like I couldn’t do it, I knew I could do it.

During my birth, my partner kept wanting to call the midwives because he thought it was time for them to be at our house. But I kept thinking I was in early labor, that I might have to do this for days. I told him the contractions were still short and not that close together. He let me know that indeed they were about 3 min apart and a minute and a half. At that moment, I thought to myself, “This is it, I’m in labor, if this is it, I can do this.” Even while pushing, where a lot of people get to a point where they aren’t sure, even witnessing births, I have thought “how is that going fit?!” I never thought that. I knew that I could birth my baby at home. 

I don’t write this as a show of strength or bravery, I write this to bring to light my unique experience as a midwife giving birth. As a person who has seen birth and wasn't scared of the process, someone who trusted the process deeply and was allowed to surrender to the experience. 

I have seen birth, I know birth. And I was able to carry that knowledge with me through the birth of my daughter. This should be every birthing person’s right. We should all know birth and feel comfortable and confident going into this mystery. I am not saying that I knew birth IN my body. The sensations were like nothing I have ever felt and I was in awe of this. But I knew deep in my heart that I was safe and this was the way to birth a baby. With that knowledge and trust in the process I was able to drop into a space to let my body take over, let my body open and get my baby from the stars. 

I feel like in the past people saw birth more often. I am not an anthropologist who studies birth practices of past cultures. But I can assume that when birth was taking place in the home of people’s sisters, mothers, and aunts, more people saw birth. And seeing birth more normalizes it. Most people giving birth today have not even seen one birth! (again, I am not sure if there are statistics that back this up, but in my experience most people have never witnessed a birth). This has to have an effect on how we go into birth! If we have never seen birth (other than in the media), how could we feel confident and trust the madness that is birth? Can we fully trust the word of our care providers or the machines that we are hooked up to monitoring our well being, or do we need to be witnesses to the process and talk to mothers who have given birth and who have also witnessed birth? 

I was also able to have this mundane birth because of my privilege. I am white in the USA, so this gives me the ability to go into birth without much fear of losing my life, or my baby’s life. Unlike a woman of color in the USA who is up to 4 times more likely to die due to systemic racism. In addition their baby is about 2x as likely to die. I speak the same language as my care providers. On top of that I have more knowledge about birth and my options than most people. I didn’t have to navigate a system that is set up for profit and not for the optimal outcome and experience of the birthing family. I was at home with midwives who are my dear friends and people who care deeply for me and my family. I am healthy and don’t have trauma that I had to work through before or during my birth. I have a partner and family who are supportive of homebirth and physiologic birth. I see this privilege and wish this for every birthing family.

I wish everyone could have a mundane birth. That they didn’t have to dive into the unknown without an internal knowing of what the birth process is as well as countless role models through their lives. I am amazed at the people’s births who I have attended and they have just trusted my word that “everything is normal,” and “yes this is indeed the way,” even when I hadn’t gone through it myself. I am amazed that women continue on even though it feels like it can’t be the right way. I guess that is the feeling of “I can’t do this.” But we keep going and get the sweetest gift at the end. But really that is just the beginning of opening, learning, stretching and overcoming the impossible as parents.