Return to Original

In 2021, I attended multiple home births as a midwife’s assistant.  One of those in particular stands out, as it took place on a small family farm, and was one of the more challenging births I’ve attended, not necessarily for mama, but for us as birth workers. To start off with, I had accidentally been given an incomplete address and initially couldn’t find the house. As birth workers, we typically, very quietly, simply let ourselves into the home where mom is laboring so as not to distract or disturb her. Let’s just say, you do not want to do that at the wrong house at 12 am!

Those middle-of-the-night drives to births are so peaceful.

When I finally knew I was at the right place on that cold November night, I softly made my way into a quiet house. Mama was still laboring in the privacy of her bedroom, alone with her husband, so we all settled in for what could possibly be, and ultimately was, an all-nighter. As is so often the case, there wasn’t enough couch space for all of us to try and get at least a few semi-comfortable winks of sleep while we waited, so my turn to enjoy the cozy couch was brief. The rest of the night was spent either working or lying on the floor with nothing but my winter coat and finally, towards the morning, the luxury of a decor pillow. Did I mention it was freezing in there? In case you didn’t know, whatever room temperature a laboring mom desires is definitely not to be messed with!

The room where the birth pool was set up and we spent the duration of the night was the entry room into the house from the back door, which evidently was used to enter and exit for farm chores, meaning that the cold, hard, albeit carpeted, floor I was lying on also had a lovely barn-ish aroma. Looking back, the whole scenario is somewhat comedic, but didn’t feel so much that way at the time!

When it came time to start filling the birth pool in the dead of night, we discovered that the hose attachment would not fit any accessible faucet, so I got the pleasure of manually holding a hose end up against a shower faucet for what felt like hours until the pool was adequately filled. I could tell the midwives were not feeling great, so I wasn’t about to make them do it, and besides, that’s what I was there for. Come to find out later, to the birthing family’s full knowledge, the midwives were both fighting Covid. However, the family still wanted them to attend if they were able, since they’d all already had it as well and therefore weren’t worried about exposure.

At the first sign of dawn on the horizon, excited, curious little faces began to appear at the double glass doors leading into the birthing room from the kitchen. Siblings knew baby was on the way and could hardly contain themselves! Several of the older kids, maybe 10-12 years old, grinningly trekked through the room and out the back door into the cold to take care of some morning chores before a family member arrived to pick up all the energetic youngsters, considering we didn’t know how much longer it would be. 

When all in the house was once again quiet and still, mama soon entered the final stretch, pushing her beautiful, healthy baby girl into waiting arms bathed in glorious morning light streaming through the window. Joy truly came in the morning!

While mom and baby snuggled safely skin-to-skin, basking in those first golden hours together, dad treated us to farm fresh scrambled eggs from their backyard and fresh, hot coffee that gently began to remove the chill from my bones. Despite aching, sore muscles and severe sleep deprivation, a sense of satisfaction and contentment begins to settle over you in those moments, as you begin to reflect on the beauty of new life entering the world in such a peaceful, simple way.

We’ve probably all reminded ourselves at some point that women have done this for thousands of years, but in this kind of homestead setting, you can really begin to picture it. Just as timeless as living off the land, surrounded by the astonishingly complex, yet beautifully simple design of Creation, home birth was seen as just as normal and a physiological part of life as a plant sprouting or the births of the animals. These strong women and families not only worked in tune with the nature around them, but also with their own physiological functions, believing and trusting that all the capability for human birth to work well was innate in them, just like for all other living things they observed. They knew to work with their design rather than against it, just like they worked with the land, and with the animals, and with the plants— encouraging, strengthening, feeding, and ultimately trusting that there would be a good harvest from their good labor.

Going back to the basics or roots so to speak, of how things work and how to cooperate and work with, cultivate, and grow these gifts takes trust that original design truly does produce the consistently best results overall, and really can’t be improved upon. That doesn’t mean we can’t implement new technologies or methods to achieve the goal of returning to original. A modern world creates modern needs that require modern solutions. I, for one, am super grateful for many of the modern tools and resources we have that, if you think about it, actually can make that return easier for us. Ultimately, however, it comes back to the core belief that the closer we get to original design and intent, by whatever means, the better results we have and the healthier we, the animals, and the land become. The same is true in birth. Honoring our physiological design, while mind-boggling in its intricate detail, is really the most simple way to see exceptional results.

Imagine the satisfaction of enjoying the fruit of your birth labor in the safety and comfort of your own home, topped off with the harvest of your homestead labors to nourish you in the hours immediately following and beyond. That may sound like a page straight out of a prairie homestead fiction novel, but if your heart leaps a little in response to that picture, and you wish it were possible, I want you to know that dream and desire of your heart is there for a reason, not to be dismissed only as wishful thinking or a wild imagination, but to be pondered and watered.

Whether or not that exact scenario plays out for you, or whether or not  you would even want it to, you can take hold of the truth that the more we strip down to the fundamental basics of our design and that of nature all around us, the more pure and simple things can become. When we realize it’s not that complicated, we realize it’s actually within reach, and that it can be our reality.

Adapted from an article originally written for The Vintage Homestead Experience magazine. Used here with permission.

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