A mother"s world was transformed – and so was my career – all by a baby"s birth

Under my hands were the hands of a midwife with years of experience, and under hers the head of a baby about to be born.

I had never met the woman lying in the bed in the delivery room before, but she gave me the opportunity as a student nurse to experience childbirth with her.

I was in my mid-twenties and had worked in hospital administration for a number of years. At this point I had completed the first year of my general nurse training: modules in care of elderly people, acute medical and surgical, and time in the operating theatre.

It should have been nerve-racking but I knew my hands would be shadowing the midwife’s, and fear turned to astonishment. I could sense through her hands the movement of the advancing baby. The midwife enabled this progress using just the right amount of guiding control. I had no fear, only anticipation.

The labour was at an advanced stage – a small tuft of dark hair was visible. There was no time to discuss anything other than that this was her second pregnancy and her labour had been quick.

The birth seemed more of a spiritual experience than anything I expected. The midwife gently encouraged the woman, with no sense of urgency but calmly and knowledgeably. You only heard a slight change in her tone and saw a hint of a nod to the labouring mother when effort was required.

The midwife cradled the head of the child as he was born, while I stood at her side. It was a defining moment for me to feel the baby part from his mother and take that first gasp. It was as if I had delivered him myself, a moment forever etched in my heart and mind. Nothing else I could do would match the privilege of helping bring another human being into the world.

It would be a number of years after this experience before I would deliver a baby by myself. I’ve never forgotten how much this gentle birth helped influence my career path. That experience in a small rural midwifery-led unit was when I decided to become a midwife. The first day there sealed my future, and not only because I witnessed the birth of a baby. It was because the delivering midwife asked me to step forward. I had no idea what she was going to ask me to do. Having done my theatre experience I knew how to scrub up at least and that was all she asked of me. She was a natural mentor.

Once the baby was born I was allowed to hand the infant to his mother. We were left in awe in the hushed silence of the room. She gently felt him all over counting along with the midwifery sister the tiny toes and fingers. It was as if nothing else in the world existed other than mother and child. The mother cradled her son in her arms as he took his first feed from her. It was a scene of completeness and contentment.

The usual depiction of a baby crying out was not so. The mother murmuring sweet words to her newborn son were calming and no one wanted to break the sense of wonder.

Such hands-on experience changed my world as much as it did that mother’s. Some 30 years on, she is likely to be a grandmother and that baby, a parent himself. To have been a part of that is profound.

I went on to become a midwife in more clinical, acute hospital settings in bustling towns and larger cities. Yet I endeavoured to keep that gentle birth at the forefront of my practice. For in all we do, in our administering to the sick or healthy, there is no greater honour than stepping into another’s life.

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A mother"s world was transformed – and so was my career – all by a baby"s birth