“Midwife. That’s what I am. A midwife.”

No mater how many times, I tell this story, I can feel it.

I feel the floor under my feet as I walk.

I feel my chin slightly raised, pressing forward.

I sense the table to my right, almost touching.
I am just tall enough to see over it.

I can feel my little head nodding as I think “That’s what I am.”

For me, both the memory and the retelling are visceral; I can feel my little self in my now middle-aged bones.

The statement, “Midwife. That’s what I am. A midwife,” is certainly true now. For 15 years, I have worked full time as a midwife. For the last five, I have also had my own midwifery practice. In these 15 years, I have attended thousands of women in labor, participated in tens of thousands of exams (prenatal, post partum, gynecological, and newborn), assisted in hundreds of surgical births (C/Sections), over 1100 newborns have been born into my hands. Midwife. That’s what I am. A midwife.

That same statement was somehow true for my little self, so young that I could not tie my own shoes, yet I knew that I was a midwife. With body, mind and soul, I knew this to be true: “Midwife. That’s what I am. A midwife.” How can that be?

I do not pretend to understand. I just know that it is.

 

Michelle
May all babies be born into loving hands