Faith

This is a picture at one of our homebirths!!! Presenting little baby June
Detrah is in the pink, she is the wonderful midwife that i work with:)

Birth is a normal, natural function that is designed so well physiologically that it rarely needs outside assistance. Many midwives know this intellectually, but it can take time to develop a heart's worth of trust.

An explanation of the nature of faith: When you sit on a chair, you believe it will hold you up and you do not even give a thought that it might collapse under your body. You trust the design of the chair, and you've had experience and know it is trustworthy. Imagine trying to sit on it and having strangers walk in and attach you to a monitor—just in case this chair should collapse. Imagine being denied food and water in case the chair fails and you need surgery. What if you've heard chair horror stories all your life, and you doubt your ability to cope with the discomforts of sitting on a chair? Faith in the design of the chair creates an attitude of trust that allows you to release with abandon the tension of your body to the chair.

Sometimes pregnant women are short on faith about their abilities to give birth. Often, whether we realize it or not, it is faith that they want and need from us. Faith is a quality and an attitude that can make or break some labors. Anyone who has been in a situation that tested their mettle and caused them to doubt themselves but had at least one advocate saying, "Go for it! I know you can do it" has experienced the power of faith. In my practice, I'm amazed at the difference of wisdom that flows out of me when working with those who trust me versus those who are very fearful of birth with a midwife.

— Excerpted from "A Matter of Faith," by Caroline Eustice, Midwifery Today Issue 17