Midwifery is a wholelife experience. At the center is creation which is occurring moment to moment. Before I knew of midwifery, I was creating new life and caring for women who were creating new life. The journeys of my bringing forth life called me to be with women on their journeys. The women I attended taught me how to midwife. The powerful spirit of birthing taught me birth is sacred.
Becoming a homebirth midwife was a metamorphosis, like a butterfly breaking out of a cocoon. I began as a hospital nurse almost 20 years ago. I started with the newborns and new moms. Next, I entered the exhilarating and exhausting labor and delivery world. As I participated in the rapidly changing apperance of birth in America, I realized the increased technology of birth, the fanciest birthing rooms, and the marketing of hospital birth as family centered didn't empower women to feel confident in their ability to birth. If everything was so safe and wonderful, why aren't women filled with trust and confidence and able to enter deep relaxation and birth powerfully? The response of the women in birth hadn't changed. They were anxious, afraid and sometimes ashamed.
Someone had to be willing to stand out there in a responsible manner, with her belief in birth and women birthing, and be there for women to birth at home. I am glad I found the courage to honor and serve women and birth.
I thank midwives at Education Programs Associates for my training as an Ob/Gyn Nurse Practitioner and Certified Nurse Midwife.
Read my poem Midwifery Meditations
E-mail: Jeannie-Kay Nerenburg
