Celebrating Normal Birth

I am off-call!  After attending and supporting 8 beautiful, strong, wonderful mothers since April, I am now due a short break.  I have learnt so much and had the immense honour of attending:

• a home 'land' birth
• a home VBAC in water
• a breech hospital birth
• a caesarean birth
• 4 home water births

I am taking my short sabbatical from being on-call in order to rest, reflect and regather my energy.  

In the mean-time, I am planning a workshop for Student midwives and doulas on Physiological Birth: birth is a normal process, a part of life and something that women should be well supported through.  Marsden Wagner writes eloquently and honestly about the dehumanisation of birth here - food for thought indeed. 

Mothers and midwives we need to reclaim birth, we need to honour the strength and courage of all women and we need to do it now.  A fantastic new website has been created for women to share their experiences of birth and midwifery - and to campaign to improve the care that women receive.  Take the time to visit the site and make your own entry....   birth is 'uniquely normal' and we need to celebrate this!

'Holding the space' & emotional strength

When you are invited to attend a birth, you are honoured to be supporting a woman at an immensely important time in her life.  As a midwife, the energy that you bring into the room during the labour and birth is really important, as you need to be able to 'hold' the space around the woman so that she can labour with minimum disruption and in her own time.  This ability to 'hold a space' requires a great deal of emotional strength; trust; patience and the ability to sit on one's hands.  This is being 'with woman'.

In March, my mother died, and the recent months have been difficult for me.  Aside to the loss of my mother, I am learning to support my daughter who is Aspergers, learning 'how' to home educate two of my children (!), dealing with a teenage daughter...... and still wanting to be the absolute best midwife I can be.

Something has to give, and for a little while that will be my midwifery.  I am taking a short 6-month sabbatical so that I can grieve, heal, rest, learn, and support my family.  Only then, when I have taken care of myself, can I return to supporting women as they journey to meeting their baby and be the midwife I aspire to be.

Angela x

Parents and Students

Last night I worked at a Mother Care 'baby&me' event; I was the 'guest' professional, on hand to offer information and advice to expectant parents.  I was feeling a bit nervous before hand, but I actually really enjoyed the event.  I chatted to lots of parents about home-birth; water-birth and choice of care.  Many parents had not had any options explored or suggested to them - and this is sadly because the brilliant NHS midwives just don't have the time!

I have been invited to come back next time (the staff were really excited I attended, and I gather that they struggle getting health professionals sometimes); I will of course attend and feel better prepared on what to take for next time.

This week I also met with my SoM for my annual supervision, and have some targets for the next year.  I really appreciate talking to other midwives - there is so much to learn and absorb (we never stop learning) and getting thoughts and ideas from another perspective is very enriching; hence my love for working with students!  I get lots of applications from students to work with me and I have my own rule of only taking 3rd year students out with me, as I physically could not accommodate more.  To make up for this I am starting to develop workshops for aspiring students and current students.  I have run two aspiring student workshops and received excellent feedback so am now keen to run more!

Angela x

First 2012 Baby....

Last week saw the arrival of my first baby of the year!  A bouncing baby boy arrived on Thursday morning after a very long labour.  Fantastically proud parents and a new mummy who was so amazing in labour and made it look easy for most of the time.

I did (of course) cry when he was born; we had transferred in from a planned home water birth as contractions were quite spaced out and mum was getting quite tired, despite all her best efforts to get energy on board and to rest where possible, it felt like the right decision to visit our local unit.  We had good care and baby arrived a few hours later.  Getting home again was more tricky; I am puzzled with my NHS colleagues obsession with testing blood sugars on a baby.  Really?  A well, term baby with quite a lot of fat to spare (did I mention he was a 'bouncing' boy), who had a good birth really should not need to have so many holes in his feet.  Poor thing resembled a pin cushion once they had finished with him and by all accounts this would have continued until a strong-minded midwife realised it was nonsense and they stopped.

Hurrah for stroppy midwives.

Loss

T'is the silence that's deafening

when the baby is born

into the midwives arms.

Warm, but still. No breath.

The mourning begins, as

the tears flow

for this sweet, sweet child

who is born into this world.

But not unto this life. This time.

T'is the silence that's deafening

as the bitter sweet tears roll down

the mothers cheeks.

And the fathers eyes; so empty, so sad. So sad.

The babe, swaddled and caressed. Perfect.

So real, yet so out of reach.

Not to be part of this world. This time.

T'is the silence that hurts

and the empty arms that ache.

Along with a heart - breaking.

Grieving

For a son, a daughter

A child

A life

A love.

Not this time.

Not yet.

Angela.

For Vincent. Born 28 December 2011.

For River. Born 20 July 2011.

For all the babies born as angels.

Baby your a Firework!

This week has been incredibly busy with bookings and enquiries; must be something in the water! I was also privileged to attend a home water birth on Bon Fire Night. Instead of watching the local fireworks display, a beautiful little girl entered the world very quickly and swiftly much to her parents surprise and delight; this time we did make it into the pool but only just!

Welcome to the world baby girl.

Angela x

A home water birth.... almost!

Well my waiting finally came to end (much to the relief of Mummy too) and my client birthed a lovely little boy at home on a sunny Sunday afternoon.

After a previous VERY long birth, my client had a much shorter labour this time around; planning a home water birth, her partner took his time to fill the pool (words were said!) and although all was going swimmingly (pun intended!) gravity was definitely needed to help birth the baby. Mummy breathed her baby out beautifully (no stitches)..... and the reason we were kept waiting? A pesky little hand on baby's head.

Well done mummy, well done daddy, welcome to the world Baby :-)

angela x