Hospital Transfer from the eyes of the Midwife

It was four days all together.
Four full 24 hour days.

We were awake for most of the time.

Yes. That's humanly possible. That's the length a Midwife will go for her clients. It's part of holding space. They're in it. And so are we. We don't have staff to rotate. We chose that as part of our career. We willingly gave up the option of working in the system and part of that trade off means we work alone or in very small groups. What we value means that much. We know our clients more intimately. We lay down ourselves for the women and families we serve. On purpose. With eyes wide open.

And when we have to transfer to the hospital, it hurts. We are already tired. Alone. And now walking into a system that views us as

less than,
unskilled,
dangerous,
stupid,
annoying,
interfering

But we go. Because that's what needs to happen next in this mama's story. We need what they offer, in spite of our differences.

We go Alone.

And alone by the bed we stand. Holding hands. Scrutinizing monitors. Making notes. Waiting. Watching. Surrounded by scrubs and clinical people. Tile floors. The never ending smell of alcohol sanitizer. Beeping. Clicking. Dripping. Plastic. Air rushing through oxygen tubes. The comfort of home, warm fuzzy blankets, candle light and praise music on endless loop...all long gone.

Alone we pray. Please let this mama be okay. Please let this baby be okay. Please guide everyone involved in best path to navigate. Help them make choices that will protect everyone involved physically yes, but also emotionally and mentally. This is not easy stuff.

We go over everything from the first prenatal to the decision to transport. Could we have done anything different? Made different choices? Avoided this outcome? With disappointment and sadness, we think about what we will have to report to our peers when we review this birth in the weeks to come. We think about the baby inside there, working this journey from the darkness of the mothers womb. And we continue to pray. We stand alone and we pray in our own special way. Putting all of our human needs aside, we continue to stand and hold space. For this too. As a team my partner and I trade off. We take restroom breaks, have food delivered for our own nourishment. Baby wipe "baths" and finger brushing our teeth, we do our best to quickly meet our human needs and return to stand bedside one by one.

We bring emotional and mental energy. Loving touch. Ears that listen. Understanding. Processing. Encouragement. We continue to stay right by the mothers side. Never leaving. For as long as it takes.

So close to the end.

Baby shows distress. Heart rate wildly rising and falling so low...

Collectively we held our breath. Its up to them for this part. We hold space for the rest.

And mama starts to push. We pray for a vaginal birth. For a pink, screaming baby. And we push. We push with her. We coach every second of that hour and a half. The room fills with scrubs and an energy of fear and anticipation fills the room with them, but we never look past the eye to eye with the OB. More scrubs. More whispers in the background. But we stay with the mothers red face as she masters where to focus her pushy energy. We stay with the little hairy head beginning to part her labia and crown in the only spotlight of the darkened room. Like it's on stage. We stay here. In this moment. When she says she can't we remind her she already is. When she says she's done we remind her that her baby is not. Eyes on the prize we say. Pink screaming baby. We agreed to this, we remind her. We hold her to her end of the bargain and she takes a deep breath and gives it her all again. Trusting us. Still. In this sea of clinical interventions. We hold space for her heart and her mind. That matters too. Maybe even more.

Home birth is not just a chic trendy way to deliver your baby. There's an entire culture associated with home birth. Many don't understand or respect that culture. It's often viewed in an entirely different light of misunderstanding.

Usually we let those people who don't understand, who judge, just roll off of our backs. We let it go. Numb and tired and eyes on the prize I don't even bother to look up and around the room. It's all mamas face and watching that tiny head begin to crown. Now is not the time or place to try and teach understanding to crowds of scrubs who don't want the lesson to begin with and don't care about the outcome to end.

At last she comes. Pink. Screaming. Perfect. A team of scrubs surrounds us rubbing baby, rubbing mama trying to crowd us out of the area and take over for their agenda's. There's no compassion. There's no respect. There's no need for what they're doing. The have the audacity to crowd our space. To come into this moment. This moment that is not theirs. To overly interfere beyond necessary. They don't even realize they are trampling an entire culture, an energy, a religion if you will. I plant my feet. I put a hand on baby, a hand on mama and I pray again. For protection. For an end to this chaos. For normalcy to return.

Standing alone in a sea of them I determinedly hold space.
Still.
Feet planted.
Shoulders squared.
Elbow to elbow, arms outreached covering this baby with hands and energy.
I stand.
For mama.
For baby.
Alone I stand.
As long as I must.
I stand.

And then I feel a hand on my shoulder. I am so tight packed in the middle of the chaos that I can't even turn around. I just feel this energy blow me over. It fills me from bottom to top with love. Love so big I overflow and pass it right through to mama and baby. This hand. I pray it stays. It means someone sees little me standing there alone. It speaks the culture of home birth right along with my soul. It says "I see you" "good job" "keep going" and I continue to pour my love and energy into this family. Baby and mama stabilize and slowly but surely the scrubbed crowd of intensity dissipates. I turn and see my sister - my student partner - and the tears uncontrollably overflow.

The mother smiles thinking I'm crying about her beautiful baby that just arrived, and I am, there is most definitely a huge flood of relief that she's safe and baby's safe and this transition of birth has happened, it went from low risk to high risk and yet it was navigated and I cry like I am her own family thankful for this new life, and that everyone is safe.

But I also cry for me.
To not be alone.
To have someone from my own culture there with me, also tired, also relieved, also understanding.

My sweet student. She may have some left to learn, but that touch, that understanding, that connection in that moment told me more about her mastery of Midwifery, of this culture than any test of skills can assess. Present. Awake. Aware. Contributing to the last ounce of her being.

And so we survived another transfer. Grateful they are so infrequent. Happy mother and baby are well.

Grateful for each other.

Grateful for Midwifery.

Determined to stand and preserve this culture.
For all of us that value it.
To the last mother that ever births we will prevail.

We will stand.


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