I'm Pregnant, Again!!

Something very very special, although obvious is happening at Luna Maya. Women come back!! They come back for a pregnancy test, or for a prenatal... and I have to retrieve their charts from two years ago, or from last year, because they are pregnant... again!!!

Very recently I was very honored to tell a two year old whose entry to the world I had witnessed that he was going to be a baby brother. Also very recently I received a call from a couple saying, you will be around in August right? because we are having another!!

This seems like the most obvious thing in the world, yes, most of us have siblings and most of the time they are just irritating and force us to learn sharing (groan), but this isn't about that. Its about a door, a womb, a family, a ritual. 

For some reason, as a midwife I am still completely in awe of the fact that we make babies in our uterus'. I watch the bellys stretch and sometimes am the first to point out- feel here, the head! a knee! This is a miracle... but to make TWO, or THREE or even TEN children. Now that is just pushing the miracle envelope. 

The way I see it is, here I was, two years ago, watching a woman open up, discover herself, her strength, work with her little one, hold her man tight; and here she is AGAIN, doing it with another little one.  Another little one that will stretch her, open her up and slide down and push him or herself out, following the path of his or her sibling before her. Perhaps since I was the first to pass through my mother I am amazed that my brother did it two years later. Might I have left little yellow arrows (and maybe a "haha" at the cervix??)?

I am honored, after spending almost six years in Chiapas of having accomanied several women through several pregnancies. Last week I attended a sibling. This time labor was different, This time it was Longer, This time the baby was born in water, This time in the middle of the night, This time is was a girl, This time an entirely different person came out of the same woman. Amazing. 

What is most special to me is that women once again ask me in, they ask me to be there, again. I think about hospital birth and wonder what its like for a woman to show up and have a random person pass her her new baby each time... almost like having an orgasm with a different person each time, you don't get a chance to get really GOOD at it ;)

So heres to siblings, to the fact that their life starts staring at the same walls, hearing the same heart, passing through the same passage and into the same arms. Heres to midwifery for walking with women as they birth all their children and being with them for each. And heres to Moms who are wise and magical, make siblings and are grounded in having beautiful birth experiences again and again.