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I became a midwife in 1999, deciding that the degree I’d been pursuing in architecture wasn’t something I felt passionately enough about \u2014 not like I did about the birth of a baby.<\/p>\n
When I was 18 and had my first child, I realized I was meant for support and empowerment of mothers throughout the birth process.<\/p>\n
After completing a three-year training program, I was qualified to become a midwife. I spent most of my time at the labor ward where I met vulnerable women and helped them through one of their most memorable experiences. Birth is one of the most amazing things in the world. I felt so fulfilled to be a part.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
After five years of practice, I experienced a home birth that nearly ended my career as a midwife. I even had to go back to it when my grandchild was born. It made me realize how difficult my job was. Mothers and babies are literally in your control.\u00a0<\/p>\n
It was a cold night and my colleague was delivering a baby at a community home. I was called to assist her as a secondary Midwife.<\/p>\n
It was an odd birth. It was freezing outside, and all the windows were open. The mother didn’t want us to help her, and her husband was very hostile towards me. I tried to talk to her as she went through labor. But she didn’t make any eye contact, talk to me, or let me use the handheld Doppler to check that the baby was OK \u2014 even though I continued to insist.<\/p>\n
A normal physiological decrease in oxygen through the placenta occurs when a woman contracts quite strongly. While most babies can handle this, the purpose of a midwife attending home births is to detect any abnormalities as soon as possible. The mom said to me to run from her.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Just as the baby was about be born, she agreed to listen to my heart rate. It was shockingly low. We saw the baby’s top before we knew it and had the equipment ready to revive it. To get the baby out of her shaking mother, my colleague performed an episiotomy.<\/p>\n
The baby arrived basically dead \u2014 white and floppy. I immediately started to resuscitate the baby, trying to raise his heart rate beyond the 40 beats per minutes it was pumping. The paramedics came to take the baby to the hospital, and as I left, I looked around the house \u2014 the blood, the cold, the shaking hands. All this was etched in my mind.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The baby died three days later.\u00a0<\/p>\n