She Under the Umbrella Tree

When I was first called to serve women & birth at the age of 19, I imagined women sitting in circle, singing together and sharing stories.

My first baby was born almost physiologically in a birth house in the NHS system, until pretty much straight after birth I was jabbed in my thigh with no explanation. I had no idea that synthetic oxytocin even existed.

Having my first son was the one of the most incredible and joyous moments of my life and inspired me to serve women and birth even more.

I could help women avoid things like unknown and unwanted jabs!

Enter doula training ... My doula training was sold to me with the belief that I could change how women's births unfolded.

As educator and advocate I would be able to save women from the evil system. What I saw in attending women's births inside the system was heart breaking.

What I saw was women being coerced, lied to and abused.

The doula groups moaned day in and day out about how terrible the medical obstetric system was but normalized the behavior at the same time.

One by one I ruled out the hospitals I could attend births in because of the behavior I witnessed. Induction for no medical reason, breaking water bags "by accident", episiotomies cut with out consent and sometimes without anesthetic, babies being yanked out of women’s vaginas and separated from their mothers. Women being shouted at, legs forced down and crowed at to push before they felt the urge to do so. Postpartum care was traumatic as women would reflect on their abuse, feeling helpless and I realised I was complicit to the abuse because I watched it happen and I said nothing.

You see doulas are taught to not confront doctors. You can know stuff but you can’t say stuff. I learnt a lot and am grateful to people I learnt from along the way, some stuff I would add to my tool box but mostly the stuff I learnt, I don’t want to be anywhere near ever again.

I learnt that doulas actually serve the system and they can't save women which is what they are sold. They watch and learn and normalise the system’s behavior. Even though they don't think they do. Doulas are taught to obey the hierarchy.

So I thought to myself I need to become a midwife, then I can really save women from the system. I refused to do nursing, I new I didn't want to learn any of the shit I'd seen in hospitals as a doula. I learnt a lot of amazing things from amazing women. Many things that I would add to my tool box. You know though, the funny thing is that I thought at the time, bright eyed and bushy tailed that what ever came from midwives was good and natural. Slowly it dawned on me that just because a midwife is attending a birth doesn't mean it isn't medical. Most midwives come from that medical lineage. It is all in the balance I told myself... but was doing a stretch and sweep on a woman to help her avoid an induction at 40 weeks balanced?? I learnt that midwives serve the system too, even though they don't think they do. I saw that midwives serve the hierarchy in order to stay accepted or they compromise themselves by serving women and that is very hard and not in integrity.

And then I stepped out on my own and dropped all the medical stuff I though was natural because I had learnt it from a midwife. And it was a lonely time. I remembered my sisters, the ones who had walked a similar path, and we held each other. And slowly but surely I washed off the pain, I unraveled myself from the idea that I could save anyone else, If I am someone’s hero, I may as well be their villain. The only woman I could save was myself. So I committed to getting to know myself more intimately. The light and the dark.

I was searching for what next, questioning how can I authentically serve women, birth and babies and at the same time stand in my integrity. How can I serve standing in my integrity. It was a slow and painful unlearning and remembering that circle of women I had had a vision of at 19. And then I found the support I had been calling in. Women speaking my language. Speaking clearly and boldly. I found sisterhood. I heard the voice of authentic midwives through the sound waves, I had found my way home. I had found the beautiful community of amazing women, an authentic expression of birth work, I found the Radical Birth Keeper school.

And now I see a crone, under a big umbrella tree, she is sorting wild flowers, a gentle smile on her face. And women come to her and they ask her to tell them her story. And she sings with the circle of women and she tells them her stories and they tell her theirs, and their hearts are on fire, their wombs are awakened their thoughts are conduits of spirit. And I wake up to my first dream of what serving women and birth and babies and myself was and is. And so it is.