Tools of My Trade #4

The Birth Room
Since I work in a birth center, we have "set up" rooms, there are three in total.  This room is called the Tent room and was inspired by the book The Red Tent.  One of the biggest tools in each room is the pool, I love our birth pools.  (they are AquaDoulas)  We keep them filled and ready, so that whenever a Mama comes in, it will be ready for her.  Each room also has a bed...very few births actually happen in the bed, but they are where the new families get to know each other afterwards.  Sometimes, when the center is empty, late at night, I can go into a room and feel the echoes of the births that have past.  It fills me with a warm glow, I like knowing this and connecting with this current.  These walls are rich with history.

Tools of my Trade #3

Speculums, Clamps, Tenaculums, Scissors
These instruments are hard and cold, shiny and clanky.  These instruments are also tools of my trade.  As a clinician, I appreciate them...use them for pap smears, rupture of membrane evaluations, placement of IUD's...all valuable and necessary tasks.  As a woman, I strongly dislike them, they are harsh, invasive and downright uncomfortable.  So, I am left as a female clinician, attempting to make them as palatable as possible.  I use them with respect and always, always, always with permission.

Tools of My Trade, #2

Baby Blankets
These baby blankets have helped to welcome countless a new babe to the world.
They are warm, fluffy and soft.  Many of them have been brought in, from home, by our own
nurses, midwives and other staff.  They have been well loved and cared for.  Others have
been purchased especially for the center.  These blankets are kept, folded, between two
heating pads.  As the birth time approaches, we turn on the pads, and thus have warm,
soft and fluffy blankets for the babes.  All of our babes are kept skin to skin with thier
mothers, so these baby blankets are placed over the babe and mother together.
Enveloping them in warmth and freshness.

Tools of My Trade, #1

Way "back in the day" before I started my journey
to midwifery, I was known to play and work with photography. Somehow, along the
way, I misplaced the photography bug. I had been concerned that it was gone
forever. However, much to my happy surprise, it has begun to re-surface. I am
going to be trying out an inspiration through the pages of this blog. The
inspiration is this....a photo essay, of sorts, to highlight some of the Tools
of My Trade. I decided to start the essay of with one of the tools that I always
have with me, ready and willing to serve my Mama's and their families, My
Hands....

These hands caress, stroke and sometimes cajole

These hands inspect, delve and palpate

These hands are sometimes soft and other times are hard

These hands support and elevate

These hands act as guides...to babies on their way out, to women as they become mothers

These hands repair and cultivate

With these hands, I honor and act with grace, for all the women....