The Midwife

Lovely Becca, nearly qualified midwife, reminded us yesterday:

Happy international midwives day lovely people! I’m never certain of much but one thing I know for sure is that there is nothing else I could ever imagine doing. It is so much more than a job and what a privilege it is.

Musing… the midwife… out of my comfort zone…

Competence… Midwife requires knowledge, skills and experience… taught, learnt, second nature…

Midwife’s expertise is demonstrated in actions: knowing when to let nature take its course and when to intervene. This wisdom generates confidence, trusted even when things appear to be out of control.

Compassion… Midwife’s there in the middle of it – active, caring… There can’t be physical or emotional distance.

Mother Teresa could have been speaking to her: Speak tenderly; let there be kindness in your face, in your eyes, in your smile, in the warmth of your greeting. Always have a cheerful smile. Don’t only give your care, but give your heart as well.

Contrasts… Midwife sees contrasts – joy and pain, health and sickness, intense distress and relieved calm, achievement and disappointment, the threshold of life yet potential death, anxious fear and triumphant hope…

She sees it all, experiences it all, treasures it all and occasionally is torn apart by it all.

Creation… The miracle of birth – a new, unique human being emerges in uncertainty yet anticipation. There’s celebration: a new life has been created and has begun.

Birth also creates mothers whose lives will never be the same again. The child, teenager and adult will always be ‘their baby’.

For a short period of time midwife enter the lives of mother, baby, family; all move on; lives are dramatically, irreversibly changed.

Returning to my comfort zone… musing on the psalmist’s words: ‘You created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb.’ and Jesus: ‘Let the little children come to me and do not hinder them.’