Austin, Derry, Columbia and Swilly

About two years ago I reached out to a woman who lives in the jungle in Central America with eight of her ten children, all of whom she birthed at home with only her husband present.

When I arranged the coaching call I was very much stuck. I was twisting and turning trying to figure out how I could possibly continue to uphold women in their autonomy to birth their babies in whatever way they wanted. I had started to figure out that it may not be possible to do this as a registered midwife and I recognised that this woman might be able to help.

The consultation was priceless. I gleaned many insights and it was the start of a journey that led me to sitting with some of Ireland's most inspiring women just a couple of days ago.

I am so grateful to the lady in the jungle for suggesting that I got in touch with a birth worker who was living in Ireland then and had gathered a community of women who, like me, were each adding skills and wisdom to the birth space that is not available in mainstream maternity care anywhere on the island of Ireland. She currently lives in Austin, Texas and, apart from our many voice messages, text messages and phone conversations in the last two years we had only met in person once.

When she announced a visit to Ireland and asked me if I was interested in collaborating with her in inviting some women to a circle themed around family birth, breath work, touch work and connection I was all in.

And so it happened at the end of a week that had already been full of nurture and connection.

Much of my time in the last seven days was spent in transit.

I crossed the border six times, the Liffey four, travelled the Glenshane Pass twice. I listened to four mesmerising podcasts, got caught in a hailstorm with three soul sisters and a gorgeous baby boy, dipped my feet in Lough Swilly.

Total miles travelled: 618

Hugs received: equal to hugs given

Blessings counted: all of them

Gratitude felt: infinite

I got to hold three beautiful babes (one brand new, one chubby cherub and one little fairy) and cuddled two giant and gentle dogs. I brought home-made soup and breads to a new mama and heated up some sweet tea for her whilst the very birth worker who had become such a solid part of my journey over the last two years combed the mama's hair and rubbed her feet. She spontaneously stopped by on her visit from across the pond and seeing her ways of blending into a family's postnatal bubble was a true privilege. There's much to learn from women who have chosen to bypass the system entirely in their calling to serve families around the time of birth. We gathered around the mama bear as she sipped her tea and told us the story of bringing her cub into the world in her living room surrounded only by those she trusted. She glowed with pride, recounting in awe her journey and adjusting to the fact that she had now crossed the threshold and birthed her sweet baby into her husband's hands. How hazy those last few days of pregnancy had been, she said. Of course she was about to go into labour the day she did, everything made sense to her now! She described how her logical mind totally denied what her body already knew.

Your baby is coming!

Her boy was latched to her breast as she was talking. We could hear him drink, barely 48 hours old. It felt profound; a new human had landed. This family's world had been folded in on itself and was in the process of taking shape again around this new baby. I could see the baby settle into his place in the family. The movement around a family with a new baby reminds me of a spiral vortex in a gentle slow flowing river with the baby attached to his mama at the centre and everyone swirling around them. Older siblings naturally move in and out of centre and the partner and wider circle contain the mother and the children. Early postpartum is such a special time and I am glad that mothers are beginning to recognise this again, making purposeful plans ahead of time. Meal trains and childcare for the older siblings can all be organised by friends and family so that the postnatal bubble can be soaked up by the parents and so that older siblings feel safe in welcoming their new baby.

When women come together to nurture and hold each other then the lines between who is taking care of whom are blurred. Though I was providing some practical support to this new family I felt like I was the one being nurtured. It is an honour and a privilege to be invited into this delicate baby bubble and I will never take it for granted.

We left her with clean sheets tucked into bed with her baby and toddler.

There were barely twenty four hours and just over one hundred miles between this moment and the next deeply nurturing experience this week.

On Thursday my Austin friend and I sat with a group of women who all had experience of family birth. Many of them had first experienced institutionalised birth in hospitals, birth centres or at home and had then decided to opt out next time. We shared stories, touch, breath and ceremonial cacao all the way from Columbia.

We listened to each other as each of us shared.

Then we all loved on the only pregnant mama in the circle. She lay as she was guided into the most beautiful meditation and we each expressed our wishes for her. Then I offered her a belly massage and she learned a self-massage practice that I teach my clients to connect with baby. She lit up when she found her baby's head floating above her pelvis.

This type of self enquiry and connection is my hope for every single pregnant mama and bearing witness to it is a true privilege.

The birth stories had a common theme.

When women disclosed their wishes for an undisturbed birth to their midwives they had to deal with an onslaught of bureaucracy. To decline all vaginal examinations and any monitoring of the baby's heart rate is against guideline. Out of guideline care plans involve paper work. The women felt judged, accused even. Some of them had to deal with social services referrals as a result of continuing to assert that this was what they wanted even though the reasons for those practices had been explained to them. 

Each of the women believed that they were accessing 'informed choice' and 'woman centred' care and they had a rude awakening when they realised that 'informed choice' means 'we inform and you choose'. The idea that a woman might find information herself and then make a choice that may be counter to the medical culture is still unfathomable to many midwives, doctors and maternity managers. 

'Where are you getting your information from?' was the question one of the women had been asked by a very senior midwife somewhere on this island. The tone of voice from the senior midwife was set to 'authoritarian'. The mama felt like she was back in school, this interaction felt like an adult to child interaction to her.

When she got out one of the fabulous books authored by Dr Sara Wickham to show it to the midwife there was nothing, no recognition. The mama had been thinking that surely the midwife must have read the book, too, and would now understand. Instead she went home deeply upset and in tears.

I heard about a couple sitting in front of another senior midwife in a different part of the island finding themselves in the surreal situation of negotiating the mama's intimate territory. 'If you won't let us examine you, you can't have a homebirth.' The midwife even tried to convince the husband to talk sense into his wife. Think about the kind of fracture that could occur in a relationship if a husband decided to side with the professional in such an intimate matter (not this guy!).

Another mama told me that the senior midwife said that in thirty years of practice she'd never had her authority undermined like this. This was in response to the woman presenting a pile of evidence in support of her requests. She said she was so passionate about birth and couldn't wait to share the resources with the midwife expecting her to be excited and grateful for the reading material. Instead of engaging with the woman or the materials she told her off. This tells you everything you need to know about the dynamic between you and your midwife or doctor in most settings in the industrial medical complex. The expectation is that you'll comply eventually because you respect the experts' authority.

Women who are used to claiming full autonomy in all aspects of life are very likely going to be disappointed. 

There's also a theme of women feeling judged and punished when they access parts of care and decline others or when they opt for out of guideline care and affirm their right to choose and make it known that they'd prefer a midwife at home but would go ahead with a homebirth either way.

'I felt very much like I was being punished for having a successful homebirth against their 'guidelines'.' were the words from a mama who engaged in postnatal care after an out of guideline homebirth with midwives.

She had been told that she'd never go into spontaneous labour with her first baby, that she'd need a sweep, that her placenta was going to fail, and that her baby would need resuscitated immediately at birth - none of this happened. She said that it all felt like projection of fear onto her!

In the end she messaged me to say 'I think as citizens we all need to write our own personal guidelines.' She was deeply disappointed with her experience with the medical maternity system.

We had many conversations, this mama and me. She knew of course that any outcome is possible at any birth. She had done so much work around finding perspective. She evaluated the statistical chances of any worst case scenario that was presented to her and she had a daily practice of meditation and self-enquiry. She knew that she would of course seek help if she needed it or agree to induction or a caesarean if she thought her baby was struggling. 

Mothers want the best for their babies and they are craving for support in their choices! 

How do you feel reading these stories?

They are difficult to hear, aren't they?

Particularly if you are pregnant.

I imagine it is also hard to read if you are a midwife.

I still find it really hard to see that my former profession isn't equipped to meet women who simply wish to access physiology informed care. For some women this means remaining completely undisturbed. They have dug deeper into the data than many midwives I know and decided that they'd rather not be disturbed by frequent monitoring. They want to go back to basics and they'd like a wise woman knitting in the corner. Someone who knows birth and  who can step in in the rare instance of a complication. I know many midwives who would love to deliver this to women and they feel let down by their regulators and employers.

Are you wondering who the women are who want this type of raw birth experience?

You might imagine a certain kind of woman. 

Surely they must be at least a little bit crazy.

Or maybe you imagine that they are just way stronger than you, don't feel pain in the same way you do.

Perhaps you have made a judgement in your mind about what these women might look like, what their jobs might be, what kind of clothes or makeup they might wear.

Here's the thing (and it's what gives me the most hope):

They are *just* women!

They work at the check out at your local Spar and others are investment bankers. They are yoga teachers, costume makers, fitness instructors, office workers, IT consultants, civil servants, health care workers, entrepreneurs, gardeners.

Just women!

First and foremost they are mothers who are seeking to protect themselves and their children from the type of stress and anxiety that comes from being judged and interrogated at each appointment once they show their cards. Counter to common belief these women and their partners have a very realistic understanding of the entire spectrum of potential birth outcomes and all of them have experience of being patronised within the system at some point. They are health conscious and they generally have their house in order when it comes to how and what they eat, how they move, how they connect with their bodies and how they interpret and act on 'symptoms' in their bodies. Some of the women take a very conscious functional medicine type approach to this, others just do it entirely intuitively.

'I'm  a healthy young woman, I just knew me and my wee baby would be fine.'

To the medical model some of the women might present with 'risk factors', sure! Age and family history are outside of their control. Their BMIs mightn't measure up to expectation, they might have had a baby by caesarean. It's easy to get a 'high risk' label. 

The vast majority of the women in the circle chose 'wild' pregnancy and 'free' birth after their initial encounters with the maternity system. Some of the women have done it right from the start with baby number one, for others it was second time around. Many have had out of system pregnancies more than once and would never do anything different in the future. The consensus was that the labels 'wild' and 'free' seem unnecessary because ultimately it is just pregnancy and then birth, ordinarily extraordinary. It just blended into life seamlessly and yet it was massively transformational. Watching the women light up when they told their stories was as much of a privilege as it was to hold them when they cried telling of the hurt they first went through within the system.

I am grateful and still buzzing from hearing those beautiful women describe the physical, emotional and spiritual impact the births of their children had had on them. All of them felt that the healing and redemptive quality of the birth experience second time around was precious and the entire family unit benefited from it. Though birth seemed like in the end it was an everyday life occurrence, there was a sense of awe for having been able to bring new life into the world entirely in their power.

At this stage I feel it is important that I offer some perspective because reading the kinds of stories I am sharing here will be difficult if you are currently pregnant. The group of women gathered together on Thursday all felt called to come to this circle because their choices and experiences in life led them there. 

I know that I could come up with a similar sized group of women who have had a great experience within mainstream maternity care. Women who knowingly chose that path after evaluating the information at hand. The beauty with giving you the tools to find the data about each childbirth topic lies in the fact that one woman will evaluate it and decide to side step institutionalised care entirely and another may wish to pick and choose or go all in with the medical model. There are examples of very supportive out of guidance care plans that are facilitated by amazing teams inside and outside of the hospital and there are examples of women who managed to breeze through maternity services without ever developing one of the ever expanding list of 'risk factors' and they came out the other side feeling happy and elated with their birth experience.

When you gather your information, make time to feel out what you want for the birth of your baby and follow your heart. Try to silence any fear that is not your own and go with what feels right for you. Follow your instinct, be true to yourself and make your choices from that place. That might mean that you want a hospital birth or it might lead you to realising that you really want an undisturbed birth.

There is no right or wrong answer, only your answer.

I am writing this blog today because the message that you are entitled to follow a desire for not just a 'positive' but a blissful experience of birth really isn't being broadcast nearly enough. And it is important to know that most of the current routine guidelines are not built on best evidence. There will always be another way of looking at it.

It is not 'selfish' to value the experience of birth as much as the purely physical outcomes for you and your baby, nor is it by default 'unsafe'.

If you have a desire to explore this topic further, I highly recommend listening to some family birth podcasts. The most popular is The Freebirth Society Podcast but there's also the Normal Boring Freebirth Podcast and the Renegade Mama Podcast (I was happy to hear some Irish voices on each of them). For perspective on all the interventions on offer I recommend listening to The Midwives' Cauldron Podcast, The Down To Birth podcast and The Holistic OBGYN podcast. 

Get in touch if you want to explore all your options in a safe and supported environment. My R.O.A.D. To Birth program is a non judgemental group program where you get the tools to find your way to birthing your baby. We discuss the pros and cons of undisturbed birth and we discuss the pros and cons of induction or caesarean birth. 

Curious? Email me at [email protected]