My Day Trip To Houston, Texas

What would make someone travel from Belfast, Northern Ireland to Houston, Texas for one day? A job interview perhaps? Maybe a passionate love affair? The type where no distance is too far and no journey too treacherous to catch a moment with your lover?

Hard to tell.

I went in search for the secret to a personal caesarean section rate of under 2% (I know, nowhere near as romantic). I knew it was possible, I’d been reading about it. The Farm midwives were doing it but I still took the mamas in my care to theatre too often for my liking. Even when I helped women embrace the laws of gravity and even when I kept interventions outside the door I still found myself wheeling women to theatre at 4am for 'failure to progress'. Women who went into labour spontaneously who had no medical interference in labour still had labour stalls. Often the explanation that was offered by the obstetrician was that the baby was ‘back to back’, positional cephalopelvic disproportion, 'This baby was never gonna come'!

I figured that this was unlikely to be unavoidable as often as I was seeing it. There had to be something else to this.

My chiropractor, Nick Maurice, and I had talked plenty about pelvic balance over the years. I asked Nick to give a talk for me at a workshop I organised in 2008. My eyes had been opened to the possibilities chiropractic offered to pregnancy and birth at a home birth support group meeting I attended when I was a student midwife. Pretty much every time I saw him for an adjustment I asked him about his approach in pregnancy. Perhaps we could even do a study together? I was considering a  PhD and I was writing a proposal for funding it, it had to be on interventions for back to back babies! I googled ‘chiropractic midwife’ and up came a very early version of the Spinning Babies website. It was very basic at the time with its hand drawn sketches of women in different positions and the corresponding explanations.

Interesting!

I started using some of the stretches that were described there in my practice as a midwife and when I finally got my dream job on caseload I could talk to women about it all when they were still pregnant. My understanding of how important it was to prepare your body for birth rather than introducing 'positions' when you were already in labour started to grow.  I was sold on this philosophy but I felt I needed someone to show me how. 

I needed to get to a workshop asap! The only problem was that there didn’t seem to be one planned in Europe anytime soon and so I looked at where else I could manage to go on days off to learn what I wanted to know. Singapore? Arizona? Israel? Texas? I considered them all. In the end Houston was ‘closest’ or ‘easiest to get to’ from Belfast. I was gonna do it on three days off. Travel there, do the thing, travel back; It really didn’t seem that different to getting called to a birth after your 8 hour shift and totalling 26 hours on your feet before falling into bed shattered (not a regular occurrence but I’d done it by the time I planned my day trip to Houston). 

‘Gerald, I need to go to Houston for the day. I really wanna go to one of those Spinning Babies workshops. Do you think that’s too crazy?’

My man, Gerald, is my biggest cheerleader. He is 100% committed to supporting me no matter what, has been from the day I met him. I'd take the trip for him and he knows it.

‘No honey, I think go ahead if you really want to!’ (I always wanted to be someone's honey)

I booked it.

So, on September 25th, 2015 I went to Houston for one day hoping to find the missing piece in this childbirth puzzle (I'm still finding pieces today and I love the mystery of it all, every woman has her own big picture but I hadn't figured that out yet, I honestly thought that there were practitioners who had it all sussed!). 

I took the bus to Belfast International and I knew this trip would be life changing, I just didn't know how yet. In yoga there's a practice called Sankalpa. A Sankalpa is an intention, a heartfelt desire, a resolve and setting this intention takes you on a journey. You don't know where it ends up, you just hold on to your intention, nurture it and follow your heart in trust. This trip to Houston was going to bring me full circle to my roots as a body worker and healer, it brought me to where I am now. 

Belfast International airport is a cute little thing. There were some American travellers on the bus and they thought it tiny (it is!). I had plenty of opportunities to make smalltalk but I tried my best to avoid it without being rude. This time was just for me, I was going to spend as much time in my own head as I could. It's a meditation of sorts, solo travelling. The flight from Belfast to Newark takes about 8 hours and it was comfortable. Regular snacks, a bit of napping, a bit of writing, some inflight entertainment and we were approaching the landing strip. A swift enough stop-over, lots of walking along the airport walkways and a connection flight had me at Houston airport at around 7pm local time. More airport walkways and the task of finding the bus to the city centre; not easy! Navigating public transport in a foreign country is never easy but I found my bus and got into Houston city centre for under a dollar! By the time I arrived at my Holiday Inn it was pitch black outside. I had forgotten how dark it gets in other parts of the world. 

I went straight to bed for an early start in the morning. My workshop started around 9 am. As it turned out there were no buses to my destination at the weekend, so I had to take a taxi to the Houston School of Massage, where the workshop was going to be held. $70 later I sent the taxi driver away and walked into the building. It seemed awfully quiet. There was nobody! I walked up the stairs and found a reception area. Thankfully there was a woman sitting there. 

'Hi, I'm here for the Spinning Babies workshop'. 

'Sorry, m'am, I don't know what that is.'

What? Had I imagined it all? Did I make all the way here for nothing? 

'I booked it, look!' 

'Ohhhhh, that's James' wife's event, yeah, venues' been changed!' 

'Where to?'

'I don't know, let me see if I can find James, take a seat.'

James came and told me the address. 

'Can I walk there?' 

It was too far to walk, there was no bus. I was gonna take another taxi but James offered to drive me. It was about a 20-minute drive and we had a great chat. Even after just a short walk to the car I welcomed the aircon. Texas Sun! James was a lecturer at the Houston School of Massage, so we were kindred souls. I arrived at the workshop just as it was starting, I found a seat and the immersion began. 

I teach workshops like this myself now and remembering scraping the surface of the topics that would become my focus of study for all these years helps me relate to my students. I felt I had *so* *much* *to* *learn*! My curiosity led me to becoming a yoga teacher. Studying my own body in movement has been the biggest revelation that's ever been given to me. It informs everything I do. My body work, my understanding of birth, how I relate to my body as a source of wisdom and how I relate to everyone in my life. I am so immensely grateful  for how my journey has unfolded so far.

If you want to know more about my body work packages for women in pregnancy and outside of it or if you would like to know about my upcoming workshops for parents or birthworkers just send me an email to [email protected]

I learned that birth is movement. I learned how much space you can make in the birth canal by moving this way or that and I learned that if a labour slows down and if that presents a problem, the movement you chose depends on where in the pelvis the baby seems to be at the time. 

At lunchtime I set out to find James' wife. She was called Edie and she had no idea that her hubby had dropped me off. So I went and told her. She was amazed by how far I had travelled just for this workshop, just for one day and so she offered to take me to dinner with her family after the workshop and then drive me back to my hotel. How generous! And so I got taken to Taco Bell by Edie and James and their children and had my first delicious meal in 48 hours. I was so grateful for this gesture and it is still one of my favourite memories. I went to my Holiday Inn bed that night full. Full of appreciation and wonder for the human body, full of gratitude for how rich my life was and quite literally full of beans! Sleep was light that night. I had to get up early to fly back home. 

Here's a selfie I took before leaving.

I left the hotel to get the bus to the airport. The hotel staff recommended that I went to the bus terminal so that I would be guaranteed a seat. It was a grey Sunday morning in Houston, the streets were almost empty. The terminal was in a desolate part of town. I saw people pushing what I reckoned was the entirety of their belongings in a shopping trolly. I was seated at the bus stop opposite the Salvation Army, alone. Those of you who know me know that I am not predisposed to panic but I did feel a little uneasy sitting there on my own. And because I am predisposed to leaving in good time I was 30 minutes early. I decided to trust and accept whatever situation was to unfold. The bus rolled in with 20 minutes to go and the driver didn't think I should be sitting there like that. He offered to lock me in the bus while he was getting a coffee. I accepted but wondered if that had been a wise decision or not. The bus was much more confined and there were more escape routes out in the open space. Those were the thoughts running through my mind as I was looking out the bus window at this building and I realised that this was were the trolly people were headed.

They were taking themselves and their trollies to Sunday morning service.

The bus driver came back with a friend and they were trying to have a chat with me. We could not make each other out. Me with my German/Norn Iron twang and those Houston lads. We just gave up laughing at the situation. The route took me through Houston town to the airport. I spotted a road sign: 'Fannin'.

The lyrics to one of my favourite Tom Waits songs started playing in my head: 

'There's a crooked street in Houston town
It's a well born path I've traveled down
Now there's ruin in my name, I wish I never got off the train
I wished I'd listened to the words you said

Don't go down to Fannin Street
Don't go down to Fannin Street
Don't go down to Fannin Street
You'll be lost and never found
You can never turn around
Don't go down to Fannin Street'

I thought it best to stay on the bus and resist the temptation to go down to Fannin Street and so I reversed my journey. Houston to Newark, Newark to Belfast.

Since then I've studied so much more. Went straight to the sources that underpinned those teachings offered to me in Houston. Let it settle in my own mind and body. Moved myself through many many yoga sessions. Learned how to lift weights safely, got stronger (not just physically). I learned how to tap into my body's wisdom for information  and feedback and nurtured my intuition. I haven't got a PhD but I found so much more. I've realised that the main contributor to a physiological birth is time, soft light and hushed voices. 'Labour stalls' are mainly due to providers running out of time. Your body will sort out your baby's position given time and your intuitive movement. Occasionally I help with baby positioning in labour. There are a few stories that stand out to me where the intervention helped almost immediately. In pregnancy my main impact is with transverse and breech babies. I do body work but the conversations that I have with my clients have an impact, too. I often help with perspective and therefore I can help with fear. Fear of an external cephalic version if the baby doesn't turn, fear of a caesarean section if the baby doesn't turn or fear of a vaginal breech birth if the baby doesn't turn and even fear of the baby turning and the prospect of a physiological birth of a head down baby. Your experience of pregnancy can have so many layers to it. I can help you figure out those feelings and make choices that are right for you. The choices are yours, my tools work for you regardless of what route you take. 

Check out my birth massage and birth prep packages!