Childbirth: engraving via creative commons
Childbirth - Family - Midwifery - Women

The Changing Ways of Birth

I was born in Michigan, and so was my mother. My grandmother was born in Finland.

My grandmother gave birth to her children at home. My mother gave birth in the hospital during the obstetric practice of twilight sleep and delivery with forceps. I gave birth by cesarean section.

As a nurse I worked in labor and delivery and neonatal intensive care. Hoping to help women avoid unnecessary interventions, I taught Lamaze classes.

Finally after many years in the hospital I worked with a home birth practice alongside doctors and midwives. I learned new ways to assist a woman during labor and birth. I gained new perspectives, able to see the spiritual side of childbirth more clearly. Sometimes, while caring for a woman during labor, she asked me to pray for her. Sometimes I observed the husband praying.

Every birth is unique. Every baby is a gift of God. I have been blessed with seeing the birth of my grandchildren at home and in the hospital.

Sharing this post with the Five Minute Friday writing community. Today’s prompt is: BORN

Carol is a follower of Jesus and a wife, mom & grandma. She worked for many years as a childbirth nurse and prenatal educator. She recently retired from clinical work. She has written articles for nursing journals and devotionals. Her novel, Aliisa's Letter, was published in 2010 and she is currently working on another project.

5 Comments on “The Changing Ways of Birth

  1. What an amazing calling! I was so grateful for the nurses that helped me during what was a very difficult and traumatic delivery. I barely made it. And I don’t know how I could have managed it without their support and their medical assistance. It was the nurses who first noticed that something was wrong and they were the first to spring into action. I wish I could hug each one right now, remembering their kindness and how they lent me their strength when I had run out of my own. What a truly powerful position they stand in. I am so grateful to have been blessed with some of the best.

  2. Things really have changed through the years regarding giving birth, and you’ve been a first hand witness to many of those changes too it sounds like. What a great career to witness regularly the miracle of birth!

  3. Every one is different,
    every child’s unique;
    some emerge instransigent,
    and some arrive quite meek.
    Some kids come in screaming
    to let world know there’re here;
    some wear smiles of dreaming
    that Heaven is still near.
    Some have skin of ebony,
    some are white as snow;
    some require remedy
    as breech-first they go,
    but most common mien by far
    is as Churchill, sans cigar.

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