I’m beyond tired after a long night yesterday, when I attended a friend’s birth to capture the experience through photography. I’m not nearly as tired as she is. That’s a given. I expected to be tired. As a mom of three and no stranger to labour and delivery, I expected anything from a few minutes to many hours in the maternity ward. What I wasn’t expecting was the profound experience I would witness and experience.
Birth and becoming a parent for the first time or the sixth time is one of life’s most extraordinary ordinary experiences. It’s incredibly profound, moving, surreal, vulnerable and elating all at the same time. I knew that capturing this experience was an incredible honour. I’ve never photographed a birth before, so this was a new perspective and role for me. In this particular case, I had swapped services, returning the favour to my friend who had captured the birth of my third son. She, however is a professional and experienced birth photographer. I am not. Needless to say, I didn’t want to fuck this up.
Being pregnant is an incredibly vulnerable time of a woman’s life. There’s incredible, physical, emotional and hormonal changes. There’s the pending unknown of what life will be, and how you will fair in one of the most critical roles you’ll play in life as you assume the title of mom with that final push. For some reason, as a pregnant woman, you become subject to outward public opinion. You’re too big, too small, must be carrying twins. Everyone has advice, and it’s suddenly reasonable for strangers to rub your stomach.
Labour and delivery takes all of this up a notch. You’re naked and exposed, in pain, worried about the safety of your baby, and coming to terms with what may have been very surreal up until this point. The anticipation has been growing for 9 months or more along side your babe, and you’re often surrounded by at least a few strangers in a hospital setting.
I have nothing but tremendous things to say about these strangers who come in shape of nurses and doctors. I am overwhelmed by their caring, compassion and patience. They do this job everyday and somehow show up everyday, fully in service to support the absolute miracle of birth. I personally remember all of my nurses, and doctors, and I send them gratitude often in my mind, for the kindness, grace and expertise they shared with me through my own experience delivery my babies.
Sitting in the back trying to remain as inconspicuous as possible while capturing the story of this birth, I had opportunity to reflect. My friend was about 4 hours into labour and experiencing painful and intense contractions about 2 minutes apart. She was in a lot of pain, her back and hips were very sore and she was tired and ready to meet her baby girl. During one contraction I took a picture capturing the scene and pulled back to look at the play back. This is when I was profoundly moved beyond what I expected. In front of me was my friend on her knees bracing the bed in pain. To her left was her husband, gently coaching her, feeding her ice chips and rubbing her arm at her request. To her right was her nurse, a man, that was applying pressure to her hips to ease her pain through the contraction. I realized that this was an expression of love in the broader sense. A demonstration of the evolution of humanity. These two incredible men were singularly focussed on her needs, strongly and confidently holding supportive roles in a way that honoured her, and her journey through this very vulnerable experience.
I have often heard, “ it takes one”. Well, last night I saw two. And this is how we shift. This is how we raise our vibration. This is how we live our lives from love and not fear. These moments. When I was there yesterday, when that moment was my “now”. My experience and observation was from a place of love and light. As more of us start to show up in this way, these disconnected experiences start to fill more and more of our “now” until, it is. Love is.
For this opportunity I am tremendously grateful. I am deeply moved, and I am sure none of these people I was silently observing would even know, if I didn’t tell them, that they had this impact on me. They were just being. And that is beautiful.
As always, I hope you are flourishing lately.