The Gift of a Midwife

In case you hadn't heard, I am pro-midwife.

Since we had lived in Seattle for only about 6 months before I got pregnant, I really didn't have many women to talk to about referrals for midwives. So, I got on-line. I found a couple of private practice midwives and one of them stood out to me, so I called.

Turns out she is a Christian. So she would pray for me at each and every pre-natal appointment. Around my 15th week of pregnancy I started to feel pretty good. I felt so good that I was bored. I told my midwife how I was feeling and the very next week I was attending the "Mom's Group" at her church. That's when my life in Seattle changed.

I was the only woman there that didn't have any kids. Really it was a play group, but since my midwife felt called to care for mother with kids younger than her own, she called it a "Mom's Group". And after a couple of awkward weeks of explaining that the only child I had was the one inside my belly I met some women that invited me to their weekly small group, which they called "parish groups". These were the first people in almost a year of living in Seattle that actually made an effort to get to know us.

During this time I also started providing childcare for my midwife. In hindsight, she was definitely trusting me with a lot after knowing me for only a short amount of time. Being able to take care of her kids also allowed me to get to know her better and we became good friends.

After my husband and I attended the parish group a couple of times we started attending Sunday worship. During the days we were in the hospital awaiting our son's birth the associate pastor called to check on us. After our son was born, women from this same church whom I had never met cooked and delivered dinners and gifts on a daily basis for the first week and a half of my son's life. One of my son's favorite blankets is one that was crocheted by one of the older members of the congregation that makes these blankets for the first born in each family in the church - a woman I have still never met. We never became members of this church, but they always treated us like family.

As I began anew the search for a midwife for my second pregnancy and delivery my needs are very different. The first time around my husband and I really needed a community to love us through this huge transition in our lives. God used our midwife to help provide that for us.

I'm excited to see what is in store of us this time, with new midwives with new gifts and wisdom to share.