Midwife Musings

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“My midwives made me feel powerful…..”
A sage midwife once told me that part of helping a mother in labor was to bring love into the room. She enthusiastically told me that without love, a woman would not fully be able to know her own power and do the strong work of labor. I was a young student, and I didn’t totally understand what she meant but her words never left me.

pregnantmom

What does it mean to bring “love into the room”? Birth is so many things all at once, but primarily it’s an unscripted journey unique to each woman. I’ve heard “trust birth” many times, but I feel its hidden intended meaning is “everything will always work out” and that is not the case. What unfolds – even in an unmedicated, spontaneous labor and birth – can bring unexpected twists and turns. Bringing love into the room took on new meanings as I matured as a midwife and grew to respect the birth process. It meant that I cried with a frustrated mother when progress wouldn’t come, exhaled with tremendous relief when the shoulders released, and ignored the cramps and twinges in my own body to stay in a physical embrace that meant the crowning head made one tiny smudge more of progress. Midwifery is so many things all at once, but primarily it’s about being part of another person’s journey. Love is the space we make for women to be the center of their own story. This is where they experience their own power, and inspire us all over again about the miracle of giving birth.  Midwife literally means "with woman" and that is simplest and best way to describe what we do. 

Margaret Buxton
Margaret Buxton
CNM, DNP

Margaret Buxton, CNM, DNP, is a Certified Nurse Midwife and graduate of the Vanderbilt University Midwifery Program. She’s the Clinical Director of the Nashville Baby+Company birth center, a freestanding birth center in collaboration with Vanderbilt Health.Margaret is a graduate of the Vanderbilt Midwifery Program. Her experience includes... Read More