Sleep as a Midwife

My mother told me that I loved to sleep as a child. Whenever I rode in the car, I fell asleep. So when I was fussy as a baby or toddler, she’d take me in the car and drive around the block to settle me in slumber. I also napped well past the age that most children gave it up. As I got older, I liked to lie on the couch in the middle of the commotion of our large family and go to sleep.

This ability to sleep in various situations came in handy as a midwife. During one long, early labor, I remember squeezing onto a couch with my midwifery partner, the only warm place to rest up for the work ahead.

Even though I was a deep sleeper, I could wake in a flash. When the phone rang in the dead of the night, I always answered after the first ring and I’d be wide, wide awake as the expectant father told me what was happening with his mate.

Sleeping at a birth was NOT a deep sleep. Usually the woman would be moaning with her contractions, while her mate and my midwifery partner sat with her. I dozed in a nearby room, to the rhythm of her labor song. Her vocalizing was a subconscious gauge for me to know when I needed to awaken—a shift in the sound of her throat often signaled a shift in the opening of her cervix as well.

After staying up most of the night at a labor and birth I would drive home, amazed at how the world kept moving and hadn’t paused in awe at the timeless experience of childbirth. I felt like announcing to each person, place & thing, “A woman gave birth! A baby was born!”

By the time I got home, my tired eyes could barely see, which was lucky since my home was usually in disarray when I got there – like the rest of the world my family hadn’t paused its activities in amazement at another baby’s birth. I’d make sure children were tended, prenatals rescheduled, and stomach was satisfied. Then I’d close the blinds, remove my clothes stained by the blood and waters of birth, bathe away the residue of that intense experience, and FINALLY put my aching body into my familiar bed to enjoy some deep sleep.

Hopefully another laboring family wouldn’t call before I awoke refreshed as that sleep-loving baby I once was.