My Journey Into Birth Work (Ode to Odie)

I started my journey into birth work before I become pregnant with my first child, 16 years ago. I wasn’t particularly planning to become pregnant, yet there I was, on the bed one Saturday evening, watching The Business of Being Born. It’s funny how life has a way of preparing you for the road ahead. Shortly after, I did indeed get pregnant with my daughter, and I knew right away that a hospital was not the place I would give birth to her. I ended up seeing a sweet San Fransisco midwife for my prenatal care and giving birth at a publicly funded birth center in Norway, my home country.

As a new mother, transformed by my birth experience, I remember walking around the city where we lived at the time and looking for a mirror of my own experience in other new mothers. My experience was one of being blown open, of deep surrender and deep selfless service to my newborn. Most of the women I saw around me in the city seemed harder, disconnected even. I couldn’t help but feel that they had missed out on some of the deeper aspects of their transformation into motherhood. I realized that our culture had reduced birth to something you just have to get through to have a baby, thereby robbing women of a sacred rite of passage. I wanted to help change that.

I took a holistic doula class when my daughter was 9 months old. It was a very comprehensive class, heavily focused on informed consent in medical interventions, their effect on the birth process and how to protect the mother from unnecessary interventions, all the while not getting yourself booted from the birthing room for being a “difficult” doula. I was left feeling rather defeated. Was this all I could offer women? Being a small helper in a big medical world, possibly making birth a tiny bit better for a few women within a broken system? I decided that if I was going to be of help to birthing women I had to become a facilitator of physiological, intuitive birth.

I kept studying. I dove deep into motherhood. I hosted women’s circles and yoga classes. I sat with women as they prepared for and processed their births, as they breastfed their babies and their toddlers.. as they navigated their way through birth and mothering outside of the main stream, and I was navigating my way right along with them. Then I became pregnant again.

The midwives for my first birth had been the sweetest, most caring women. I had felt held and supported in ways I had only experienced with my own mother and grandmother. They were, however, also authority figures who had brought protocols and management to the birth. It took me a little while to realize that I had given them a big chunk of my power. At my most vulnerable, their well meaning help had prevented me from going deep within myself to find my way trough. Instead I had shrunk back and followed their lead. It wasn’t a traumatic birth by any means, but I had regrets about letting them have such a huge influence on how my daughter was born. I felt that I had pushed her before she was ready, and I regretted it.

For my second birth I wanted to know what it would feel like to be completely in charge of my own birth and act purely from a place of intuition. I went on to have an unassisted family birth at home. Just me, my husband and our almost 4 year old daughter. It was one of those ordinary, extraordinary days. I could have been doing laundry, baking bread or birthing a baby. It was magical, exhilarating, and strangely ordinary. It was beautiful, hard and messy.. It was all the things at once, just like life.

For quite some time, I wanted to become a midwife, but something in me prevented me from taking the step. I was deterred by the prospect of being responsible for someone else’s life and experience. I found that in our culture, we are too quick to sign over the responsibility for our own health, lives and birth to authority figures. How could I be responsible for someone else’s destiny? I was put off by the legalities of midwifery licensure and the fact that midwives, in my state and most other states and countries, have to serve two masters- the birthing woman, and the licensing body. Was it possible, I wondered, to fully and wholeheartedly support each women’s unique journey into motherhood while at the same time adhere to standard protocols and regulations?

I left the birth world for many years. I focused on motherhood and nurturing my growing children. I got into homeschooling and homesteading, built a house, got into horses… until one day, I was asked by a dear friend if I would support her during the unassisted home birth of her first baby. So I did. And what a magical experience! I felt immersed in the process with her. My intellect totally took a back seat, yet I was fully tuned in and present. I was blown open, awestruck. It was a new birth for me, just like my birth into motherhood had been, all those years ago.

I had witnessed another woman bring forth life, guided purely from within. I had watched her birth in true freedom and surrender. And I had sat in that surrender with her, as nothing more than a grounding anchor, while she navigated the waves of her birth. Taking everything as it came in the moment, fully present and aware, without fear or judgement.
I had witnessed a baby enter this world and take his first breath. Watched him land and adjust on his own terms. No scores, no measuring, just a quiet knowing. He was challenged, but he was okay.
This, I thought, is how I want to support mothers and babies. And so it began.

Thank you, Odie, for the blessing of allowing me to witness your birth. I feel like you called me forth, and gifted me with that experience. I am so excited to watch you grow and see what other blessings you will bring to this world in your lifetime. What a bright shining soul you are. It is my aim to always honor your blessing and extend it to the families, mothers and babies I am privileged to work with. Thank you for igniting in me the sacred birthkeeper potential.