A thank-you to my midwife, and midwives everywhere.

Dear Beth,

Thank you for attending the birth of my baby.

Thank you for your endless warmth, acceptance, and support.

Thank you for your plethora of wisdom and knowledge.

Thank you for providing me with evidence-based care.

Thank you for taking an hour at every appointment to talk to me about how I was feeling, or if I had any concerns.

Thank you for trusting that I could make my own choices, being fully informed.

Thank you for presenting both sides of each issue and leaving decisions up to me.

Thank you for having a child-friendly office.

Thank you for coming to my home and running through some of the “what-if” scenarios with me and my husband. This is the path to obtaining fully informed consent. This is starkly different from my hospital experience.

Thank you for knowing it was time for you to come over before I even knew it.

Thank you for quietly asking if you could check my baby while I was in transition on the toilet.

Thank you for hanging back in the doorway and letting me labor as needed.

Thank you for being so quiet and peaceful and letting me stay in my zone.

Thank you for never doing anything unnecessary.

Thank you for being so calm when my baby was born 9 minutes after you arrived.

Thank you for catching my baby in a less than convenient way– in the doorway of my tiny bathroom.

Thank you for echoing my sentiments when I exclaimed in disbelief, “That was fucking awesome!”

Thank you for giving us plenty of time to quietly bond.

Thank you for waiting to cut the cord, without question.

Thank you for doing the newborn exam in my bedroom, after we had time to bond. This is common sense for a homebirth, but, again, so very different from my hospital experience.

Related: My Healing Homebirth

Thank you for doing home visits to check on us during the postpartum period. Not having to worry about getting my newborn to a doctor’s office was a huge weight off my mind.

Thank you for continuing to be available to me and answer my questions after my baby was born.

Thank you for being such a blessing in our lives that we were truly sad when my pregnancy was over, knowing we wouldn’t see you as often.

Thank you for keeping alive the ancient tradition of tending to women during one of the most powerful, transformative times in our lives.

Thank you for being my midwife.