The Gift of a Fearless Birth
I am really honored by the invitation to share my journey to midwifery and becoming a Certified Professional Midwife (CPM).
I am dedicating this story to my Mom, Dina, who taught through example that growing and birthing babies is sacred, intuitive, and hard work. It is something we “just do.”
She never spoke about birth with fear and she always made it clear that her births belonged to her. She would (and did) fight to be left alone to move, labor and birth her way. My mom always let her intuition guide her. She had an unshakable confidence in her ability to bring her babies into her arms, where she fought to keep them, despite nurses trying to take them out of sight and into a nursery. She birthed my sister and I in the hospital during a time when women were still being strapped down, shaved and separated from their babies for as long as the hospital deemed appropriate. Three years after my sister was born, she got pregnant with my brother. She found Linda Graf, a homebirth Certified Nurse Midwife (CNM) who I am also lovingly dedicating this story to and who cared for my mom through her last three pregnancies and homebirths.
Linda left me with a lasting impression that birth was something to celebrate!
When I think of her I see her big smile. I swear that seeing my cats have litters of kittens as a kid was huge in keeping fear out of the birth/labor equation. Developing an intuitive "knowing" at a very young age about the patterns of behavior during gestation, the shift right before mama kitty would disappear to have her babies in a closet or under a bed. It was comical to watch us kids figure it out...rumbles among us asking, "where's the cat? Have you seen her lately?” and then realizing and shouting out, “I bet she had the kittens! You check the closet and I'll check under the bed." We always knew to look quietly and never touch her or the kittens. If she was finished birthing we would bring her water and a can of tuna because my mom said she needed it after so much hard work. We would quietly watch her clean her babies and wait for them to crawl over and find the milk. They would bob their heads, their eyes sealed shut, but they always knew where to go and what to do.
After I had my first baby, I became aware of just how much all those cats and kittens taught me!
I have been doing birth work since 2014. I began as a doula after the birth of my fourth baby. I have five kids. My older two were born in the hospital (1998, 2000) and the younger three were born at home (2012, 2014, 2018). I am blessed because they were all complication-free pregnancies and births. All were unmedicated and I used to think they were all intervention free. That was before I understood how “intervention” was defined. So many things were presented to me as “normal” parts of the process, or “insignificant interactions” but they were actually major and unnecessary disturbances. Despite the interventions, I walked away without trauma. I attended that first doula training in 2014, and I was horrified to learn how INSIDIOUS fear and trauma were in pregnancy and birth. For me, birth just seemed like a “normal” part of life that required minimal assistance. I saw babies born on the floors of rooms in our home, with blankets from our closets and beds. My dad was by my mom’s side. There were no big, loud machines and no one in gowns or masks. There were women in regular clothes helping my mom. They were focused when the babies landed and I could feel the intensity in those moments. Now that I know more, I understand in hindsight that they used their skill and wisdom to avert some things that could have become complications.
But even through those moments, the midwife’s hands moved surly and her voice stayed steady.
My siblings were born into a loving and safe environment. After the births the midwives shared in our joy and drank coffee in our home while my mom held her babies to her breast and nursed them for the first time. This is how I know birth.
When I realized how most people know birth, I wanted to be part of “shifting the paradigm” as one of my mentors says.
I continued my education and found myself diving deeper to understand more about the physiology of pregnancy and birth, how to support a healthy pregnancy through nutrition, and how to recognize manipulation by providers who had agendas and wanted to manage people’s births because they had no understanding of or trust in the process. My passion for birth work kept growing.
I was attending as a doula, teaching private and group Childbirth Ed classes and growing so many wonderful relationships with families and colleagues. I started attending trainings and conferences intended for midwives. I somehow landed in an amazing apprenticeship with a longtime friend and CPM who believed in me and saw my passion. She attended my last birth and has offered me countless opportunities over the years. I am so grateful for her support and friendship.
I began my midwifery studies formally in 2018 after the birth of my fifth baby. I chose to do the Portfolio Evaluation Process (PEP) which is a combination of an apprenticeship for hands-on learning and self paced didactic studies. In 2020 I started working as a full time assistant at Gentle Birth Care, a busy homebirth practice owned and operated by Hillary Kieser. I had my first two homebirths in 2012 and 2014 with Hillary, who was recommended to me by Linda! It has been such a wonderful experience to work as a client, a student and co-worker with Hillary. She is another woman who has brought so many good things into my life. I completed my clinicals in 2022 and in Spprin of 2023, I sat for the national exam regulated and overseen by the North American Registry of Midwives. I am still working for GBC, assisting area CPMs, taking a few private clients.
I just accepted a position as a Staff Midwife at Authentic Birth Center in Milwaukee. I listen to a podcast called “Quick and Dirty Midwife Life.”
One of their guests, Mackenzie McNamara, said, “...birth is such a big rite of passage…I don’t know any other time in life we get to experience the power of creation moving through us like that. To witness that within ourselves and to feel it is so life changing on every level that it’s changed who I am as a person…It brings so much of your core stuff to the surface, spiritually, if you’re willing to be there with it.”
Every time we give birth, we go through a transformation. We are not the same people on the other side of birth. I have witnessed so many women give birth and it is such a joy and an honor to see them work through things and to see their strength and power unfold and bloom as they bring life into the world. They are doing the work that only they can do. I love offering trusting support and a space to feel safe.
Most importantly, I love encouraging people to trust in themselves, their intuition and the process of birth.
Ironically, tonight I was on social media and I saw a thread of comments where hundreds of women were expressing not just fear but genuine terror of labor and birth. It made me really sad. There is a huge need to get out in the community and remind people how strong and capable they are. Let’s “shift the paradigm”!
I owe a huge thanks to Carrie for the work she does to help prepare people for the work of labor and birth. She is fantastic at what she does and I hear so many compliments from women who have taken her classes and worked with her. They all say they implemented techniques that helped them manage the hard work of giving birth and using their energy and strength most efficiently. I also want to say thanks for inviting me and others to share their knowledge as guest bloggers.
Seong Kitsos is a Certified Professional Midwife and Licensed Midwife. You can reach her at [email protected].
