Birth as the journey of the soul - a doula’s perspective

I am not a midwife, cannot bring a woman back from the brink, cannot breathe life into a baby’s lungs, do not risk my own safety over a birth should things take a sorrowful turn. Although, once upon a time, I have been. And will be again. These days it seems an important distinction to make as even doulas don’t know what it is that we are. To me, a doula is a bridge, a shamanic role, the weaving of awareness of the medical with the spiritual. The freedom to speak where others are compelled to silence.

Doulas will not be around forever but in this time and space they are a vital part of the remembrance of women’s wisdom. Today we have doula and midwife, where once these roles were in sacred union. I pray to my midwife ancestors to inform my doulaing and perhaps my great grand-daughters will pray to me as they midwife again, asking for their doula grandmother to bring those unique qualities of trust, holding back and clear boundaries. I am excited to doula as a spirit.

The birth world is an interesting place to be, where you have everything from toxic positive hypnobirthing that bans talk of trauma to the freebirth gurus who refer to women as “birthing in captivity” if they do not stay home. I saw with interest one recent freebirth influencer’s birth and how it had been filmed with the awareness that hundreds of thousands of people would be watching at some point in the future. I wondered who would feel more in captivity, the woman birthing alone with the weight of her reputation on her, or the woman in a quiet hospital room with people she loved and trusted.

More than once I have spoken to a pregnant woman whose biggest anxiety is the pressure she puts on herself to have the perfect birth, for these invisible watching eyes.

One of the advantages of supporting home birthing families is I believe I have a special glimpse into when intervention is indeed medically necessary. When the preparation has been done, when the birth space could not be more relaxed, when the induction is declined. There are indeed abuses happening every minute to women giving birth in this country, births are sabotaged, and the unnecessary inductions and caesarean rates are a scandal. But I would be remiss in focusing only on this in my work, when I know that birth is really the journey of the soul.

All the education and activism in the world cannot change that.

Birth is the initiation of the baby into life on earth, and the initiation of the woman into motherhood. Initiations are powerful and personal, are moments when time becomes an illusion, where pain and pleasure meet, where we emerge courageous and reborn. A common motivation for a second pregnancy after a first disappointing birth is the desire to “reinitiate”, the sense that the process was somehow not completed.

This is a world of duality, and there are many high vibrational children choosing to incarnate for the experience of opposites. I have seen this with my own eyes. For these souls, it is my belief that a medicalised birth is a strong possibility because they are entering into this world with the desire to heal and to bridge. They came here to know and to understand, and to experience is to truly understand. Extreme ends of the spectrum have always been and will always be the highest forms of initiation.

“We’re all wounded healers, because we’re meant to be” as herbalist Stephen Buhner says. For babies, the way they choose to enter our dualistic world in the highest vibration of love can shatter our limited and often ideological perspective about how things “should be”. Who knows what gifts their birth will awaken in them?

When we cling to our beliefs we miss the magic. At my birth over thirty years ago a midwife attached a fetal scalp electrode to my head against the express consent of my mother, an utter violation as she screamed out for her to stop. The brutality caused me to pass meconium and swallow it and I had a tube shoved down my throat at birth. I was born choking. When a psychic medium told me I had left my previous life being choked as a witch the two stories seamlessly joined together. Choking was my last and first memory. How much of this life are we choosing? How much is a memory? How much are we truly responsible for?

Everything is a desire for healing. It is my wish that those working in the birth space know this, cast off their ideologies in favour of radical love and humility in the face of the mystery. The ancestors cannot be kept out of a hospital room. There are cages we create for ourselves even while planning an unassisted birth.

A Course in Miracles says; “the holiest place on earth is where an ancient hatred has become a present love.'

And so it is.

To my daughter on her birthday

Six years ago today you burst forth from the waters of the womb, my merchild who swam before she took her first breath in this world. My glistening, shiny seal pup with your rooting mouth and wrinkled fingers. It felt as if I did not put you down for the next three years, and I needed that as much as you did. I dreamed of a daughter who was wild and free with a strong voice and will, you followed me in spirit for months and I felt you settle down in my womb five days before any blood was due. You have always been good at getting your own way. To raise a girl who has always been adored by everybody around her. To raise a girl who stamps her feet and tosses her head like an untamed mare. The joy of seeing you floating in the sea singing to the spirits of water and air. The way you listen soberly as I answer your questions about life, death and nature and you keep the answers safely tucked in your heart. Then the next minute you are laughing and teasing, five years old again, except now you are six, and who are you becoming?

Mabon

Mabon and the windows are steamed up in the morning, the children have hot chocolate before school tucked under blankets. My legs are no longer bare to the wind and grass, there are now rows of sodden coats drying slowly in the hall. The cottage is warmer inside than outside, still holding summer in the stones, but soon I will be gathering wood in my baskets to bring indoors instead of flowers. This time of year I was heavy with child both times, holding my bundles to me at Mabon and Samhain. This year there is no belly and no bundle, my arms are full of eggs and kittens and my husband's warmth. The icy breath of the goddess moves across the land, drawing lovers back to the hearth and I love her for it. Birdsong and the whispers of the dead. All return to her.