Michelle on finding her calling

Today is my 21^st birthday, and I will spend it hiking through the Cape of Good Hope with my new friends, new hiking pack, and a fresh outlook on what I want to do with my life. Before I explain how I have decided what I want to do with my life, I want to share a quick tradition we have learned about in South Africa. When South African youth turn 21, they are given a large, decorative key inscribed with their name. This is the key to their adulthood, and should be hung above the doorframe of their first home. Commonly, this key is passed down through families. I very much like this tradition, and hope to pass it on to my friends and family.

This week I started my activist project, a requirement of one of our classes. We are to choose an organization that we will volunteer for, and hopefully aid them in some way. I have always had an interest in women’s health, and specifically reproductive freedom. Reproductive freedom, as many assume, does not just apply to abortion rights, but also to freedom in birth. Freedom to choose where, who attends, and especially weather to have a midwife or obstetrician. The midwife standard of care is very different than obstetricians, who tend to treat pregnancy and birth as a pathology that needs “curing.” Midwives believe that birth is a natural process that a woman should actively “do.” Labor is something one does, not a process that happens to you. This philosophy has always resonated with me, and I had always thrown around the idea of becoming a midwife. It always stuck in the back of my head, even, I think when I was a little girl. When I was in elementary and middle school I read and re-read a book called “The Midwife’s Apprentice” until its dog-eared pages fell apart.

On Tuesday I shadowed a midwife in Plumstead and sat in on her consultations for the day. I called her early in the morning, per her instructions, to make sure that she was not attending a birth that morning. She told me that she had actually been at a birth since 3 a.m. and was just heading to her office. I could hardly believe her enthusiasm as she told me about the birth and her upcoming appointments, even though she had not slept the night before. Her passion was contagious. She told me the story of Amelie’s dilevery, and how she refused to be examined. She was in control. Knew when it was time to push. Time to rest. Her body told her what to do. Hearing this story of a woman’s empowerment through her birth exhilarated me.

I walked into Ciska’s office, and immediately felt at home, thanks to a painting of my favorite tree, the baobab. As I watched several women, in various stages of their pregnancies, be examined, I was overcome with emotion. I have never felt such an overwhelming desire to learn, to touch, to comfort, to lead these women through such an exciting and promising time in their lives. The only way I can describe the feelings I had would be to equate it with a calling to the clergy. I have been called to this, oldest of professions, and cannot wait to start my journey to practicing midwifery. “Midwife” comes from the old English “to be with women,” and I can’t imagine a better way to stand up for women’s health and rights by empowering and encouraging a woman through the hardest, most painful, and most rewarding day of her life.

I have been thinking a lot about this decision, and I know I haven’t been at a birth yet, and many of you probably think I am an idealistic young girl who knows nothing about the hardships of birth. I hope that this is not true, however. I hope that I truly have found my calling, and that I have the strength to see it through. That’s half of the excitement. I don’t know if I can do this, but I can’t wait to try.