Interview with The Bump
1. Delivering babies must be wild! What do you love about it?
Attending births is wild, regardless of the setting, but in an out-of-hospital facility doing unmedicated birth, we see an increase in the wildness. At the Birth Center we say, "What gets the baby in, gets the baby out." Meaning, the same noises, faces, music, atmosphere, hormones, etc. that helped you conceive, will help you give birth. As there is a wide variation in a couple's sexual practices, there is a wide variation in birthing at Mountain Midwifery Center. Some women are quiet, some have a mantra of cuss words. Some women like more traditional postures, some women are squatting in the bathroom! All are normal. For me, I am a midwife because I believe women deserve the chance at "hand-and-knees waterbirth by candlelight."
2. What’s the one thing you wish every pregnant woman knew?
I wish women would realize that pregnancy, birth and breastfeeding is what a woman's body is programmed to do. Of course, there are women that struggle to get pregnant, need medical intervention at their birth and require breastfeeding support, but that is the minority of women, not the majority. If it was the majority, there wouldn't be 6.5 billion people on the planet! For most women, pregnancy is, and should be, a time for optimizing wellness, not expecting the worst to happen.
3. What’s your funniest delivery story?
Oh, there are so many…. One second-time mom, who had an epidural with her first baby decided to give birth at the Birth Center. At the end of her labor, she was literally marching in place by the bed saying (in a loud voice) things like, "Whose stupid idea was this… I am walking to the hospital for an epidural…. I will never do this again…. I hate sex!" Before she walked across the street, I asked to check her cervix. I told her to give me a push with the next contraction, and when she did, her baby came out in one push! As she took her bright-eyed baby into her arms, she kept saying, "I am Superwoman, I am Amazing, that was the best thing I ever did!!" Her husband then said to me, "We are not going home, we are going to the mental hospital because my wife is schizophrenic!" We all had a good laugh.
4. Labor can be unpredictable. Any advice for dealing with unexpected things that could happen on the birth day?
At the Birth Center, we talk to families about the unexpected frequently. We tell parents that you never get to control your child, and that starts in the womb! We tell women to focus on what they do get to control: what they eat and drink, what they do with their feet (exercise) and what they believe in their hearts and minds about their body's ability to give birth. Then, if they get stuck in labor or their baby tells us it is time to move to the hospital, we listen to her body and baby. Letting go of control, control of the labor process and control of her child, is the first lesson of parenthood. That is a very difficult process for women who are used to setting goals and achieving them. As a mother of five sons, I am constantly being reminded of that lesson myself.
5. What’s the number-one question every new mom asks? And, of course we have to ask, what’s the answer?
"Is my body and/or baby normal?" New moms want a easy answer to an infinitely complex question! Instead of trying to give her an answer, we try to refocus her energy on herself, so she can listen to her body and her baby. Just because that book/that advice/that technique worked for your sister or friend, it may not work for you--and that is OK! We want women to listen to themselves and watch their own baby to see what works. That's what gives them confidence in themselves and their own mothering abilities. Confidence in her own abilities is so important because there is no epidural for motherhood!
Tracy Ryan, CNM, MS is a 2002 graduate of the Frontier School of Midwifery and Family Nursing and Philadelphia University. She and her husband own Colorado's only Licensed and Nationally Accredited Birth Center, Mountain Midwifery Center, Inc. Tracy is also the mother of five sons, aged 6-16, three of whom were born at home.