by Janet Fraser

On Saturday, I had a group of women visit to celebrate my pregnancy and wish me well on an upcoming move and home birth. Home birth creates community. Home birth empowers women and we see ourselves as at the centre of the birthing journey, not any unknown experts called in to oversee our bodies in a strange environment. The journeys we’ve all taken to reach this point are so profound and so personal but I’m able to share two with you and I’m sure their experiences will vibrate in your own lives.

Annabel* came to home birthing via a love of all things natural, spiritual and metaphysical. She feels a oneness with her environment which she uses in her professional life as a nature photographer. In her early 20s she constructed a mudbrick house in Northern NSW. When she conceived she knew in her bones that this child deserved to be born on the soil she had worked with her hands, in view of the ancient forest that had nurtured her soul. Her labour was long and she loved it, working with her body, gazing out the window at night at the moon and stars and moving slowly through the garden during the day. When her baby was born Annabel’s hands were the only hands to touch and welcome her baby. Her midwives stayed at a distance, nodding supportively and watching birth unfold in front of them. Annabel is always a loving inspiration to us all with this story.

Commonly, women come to home birth after travelling through the hospital/birth centre system. Melinda* chose a birth centre for her first baby. At 41 weeks gestation the midwives told her that if she didn’t spontaneously go into labour soon, she would have to be induced or lose her place in the birth centre. Feeling she had no choice, Melinda submitted to induction and laboured on her back tethered to the bed by machinery. Induction led to caesarean and a babe who was taken away and eventually handed to his shellshocked mother hours later. Months passed and Melinda found a home birth support group. She was validated in a way that she previously had not been, supported and nurtured to heal herself. Currently pregnant and planning to birth at home she is already finding a world of difference in how very normal her pregnancy is this time around.

Sometimes it takes us a while but once we feel we have a right to birth in ways which nurture us and our babies and that we alone have the right to make decisions about our bodies, home birth flows naturally from this place. I know that in a few short months when I light my labour candle, Melinda, Annabel and so many other women will light theirs and be with me in spirit as I labour to birth our baby at home, in safety, with our older child present. I can’t think of anything else I wish more for right now!

* Names changed. Stories used with permission.