Ina May Gaskin has been called “the mother of all midwives” since reintroducing midwifery into the mainstream in the late 1960's and to her I owe my career, my passion and the health of my future children. I read Spiritual Midwifery for the first time just a couple of years ago and since then I have referred to it and referenced it more times than I can count. I have shared it with more than a few expectant mothers and have even read stories from it to my husband.
I always knew in my heart that pregnancy, labor and birth was supposed to be the way Ina May teaches it to be but until I reached a certain point in my life, I was unequipped to process and relay the information. When I reached that point and my admiration for pregnant mothers turned from admiration to devotion, I found myself at a local bookstore and was a bit disappointed to find that there were no books on midwifery. I asked for a handful of books to be ordered and the first one to arrive was Spiritual Midwifery. My mind was open for learning and I drank every word of it with complete fascination. I'm not sure if I had already decided that “mommas” were going to become the focus of my life's work, but if I hadn't already, Ina May had sealed the deal.
The book was interesting to read and once I adjusted my lexicon to the colloquialisms of the hippie culture of the mid 1970's (not a far reach) I started to transport my mind to the cabins in the woods of Tennessee and I found that it was not hard to imagine myself there. Midwives are tender and compassionate by nature and above everything they have a complete faith in the female body's ability to birth her babies. The strength of that belief, which I believe was already inside me, welled to the surface and remains just as important to me today.
While the difference in the culture of the 1970's seems to differ greatly from the culture of today, the similarities are abounding. As long as there are wars and prejudice and people oppressed, there will always be people willing to fight for the causes they hold dear to their heart. The spirit of the hippies from the 1970's is still alive today in the war protesters, the human rights organizations, and the women who are demanding that they be able to birth their babies in the safest and healthiest way they know. In their home or in the hospital, Ina May taught me that my number one duty is to fight so that women have their babies the way they want to, not the way the insurance agencies or CDC or the AAP wants them to. She helped me remember that women have been doing this successfully for thousands of years, with the support of the people that love them and the women that have compassion for them, not vacuum extractors and abdominal surgery.
I have since read many different books about childbirth and raising children, and while I have learned so much from each and every one, the stories told by the women in Spiritual Midwifery and even Ina Mays Guide to Childbirth have touched me to my core. The stories are real, told by real women who had real wonderful life-altering births. I could never forget them, I will never forget them. They will remain my driving force behind my desire to bring Dar a Luz to this area and my driving force behind my goal to become a midwife and bring this opportunity to every woman that wants it, because she, as a woman, is entitled to it.
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