Midwifery in the Days of COVID-19, a movie

"Everybody knows that pestilences have a way of recurring in the world, yet somehow we find it hard to believe in ones that crash down on our heads from a blue sky. There have been as many plagues as wars in history, yet always plagues and wars take people equally by surprise."- The Plague by Camus

I didn’t want to go for a walk yesterday.

I wanted to go back to bed at noon and hide under my weighted blanket. 

“The world is changing.”  (LOTR)

I didn’t want to do yoga this morning.

I wanted to lay on the couch and drink heavily spiked coffee.

“The world turned upside down.”  (Hamilton)

I don’t want to think about doing my next birth with PPE (Personal protection Equipment). I want to do births the way I have always done them, fully engaged with my body as well as my mind, without a mask pressing dents into my face, and my breath fogging up my protective glasses.

“The average person touches their face three to five time every minute.  In between that we’re touching door knobs, water fountains and each other.”  (Contagion)

But I’m doing all these things. I don’t feel like doing.  Because today I’m not reading one of my books or adventure stories, or watching a sci-fi dystopia or doomsday film.

I’m living this scary movie in real time.

And it came on quick. Just six weeks ago I was planning my fifty-first birthday weekend in New Orleans.

Now I've sent my kids away for their protection, am living in isolation (officially known as "shelter in place") and go only between my house and my job as a midwife at a birthing center.

“This is our routine. Day and night, all we do is survive. It never lets up. He tells me how these streets were crowded with people just... going about their lives. Heh, must've been nice” (The Last of Us)

As one of the only 319 licensed midwives in the state of Texas, suddenly my health is of great importance to a great many people.

Beyond that, as a fifty-one year old woman with a history of asthma and respiratory disorders I do very much hope to avoid tangling with COVID-19 for my own sake as well.

However, there is this problem of isolation.  I do not want to end up like Will Smith talking to his dog and a mannequin and memorizing Shrek word for word. (I Am Legend)

Except for me that would be my cat and the childbirth education baby doll and memorizing the extended version of Lord of the Rings.

Okay, I’ve already done that, but still.  It could get worse.  I could start speaking exclusively in Elvish.

 “It does not do to leave a live dragon out of your calculations, if you live near him.”  (LOTR)

Amazingly, I still have conversations with people almost daily either in person on online who still refuse to believe this is a real threat. They think it is a joke, overblown by media, or a conspiracy theory, or, a combination of all three of these.  

I try to be kind to them. 

Good thing they can’t see the expression behind my mask.

“Most people don't believe something can happen until it already has. That's not stupidity or weakness, that's just human nature.” (World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War)  

I understand the denial. 

As a Christian I struggle the most with other Christians who are using their faith in God as a cover for ignorance or denial or pride. I fully understand the misuse of “faith” to minimize real-world risk, because I have walked that path, and seen people die. As a follower of Jesus, I do have faith but I also know full well I am mortal.

My faith is not that my God will keep me from dying as much as it is in where I will go after I die.

“What one does when faced with the truth is more difficult than you’d think. I learnt this the hard way, a long, long time ago. And now, my life will never be the same...” (Wonder Woman)

I had one night recently where I faced that fear, the fear of dying.  The hard part was, realizing that the place I have always felt the strongest, most confident and most safe- the birthing room- was now the most dangerous place in the world for me as a midwife.

“You never know how much time you'll have” (The Host)

I did not like that feeling.  I love birth, and the birthing room has always been my safe happy place, a haven in a fallen world, where everything is as it has been from the beginning.

I called a midwife friend for help.  She reminded me, “Think of the people you are serving, who are able to stay out of the hospital and be safer at this critical time because of you.”

That did it.  I found my way out of the dark place, and back into the brightness of the birthing room.  And I found that once I was there, everything was still as it always had been.  

Turns out, once I am with a person in labor, I forget about COVID-19.  I forget about risk.  I almost forget about my mask -except that my nose keeps itching. I don’t think about anything except the beauty of birth, the strength of women, and how I can support that strength and be the lifeguard I need to be of this sacred moment.

So I want to reassure all the birthing families.  

As we take all the necessary precautions, I just want you to know, this is still your midwife behind this mask.  And you are still strong.  And birth is still holy and good. 

And I will not let that change.

Sam Wise Gamgee: “It's all wrong. By rights we shouldn't even be here. But we are. It's like in the great stories Mr. Frodo. The ones that really mattered. Full of darkness and danger they were, and sometimes you didn't want to know the end. Because how could the end be happy. How could the world go back to the way it was when so much bad happened? But in the end, it's only a passing thing, this shadow. Even darkness must pass. A new day will come. And when the sun shines it will shine out the clearer. Those were the stories that stayed with you. That meant something. Even if you were too small to understand why. But I think, Mr. Frodo, I do understand. I know now. Folk in those stories had lots of chances of turning back only they didn’t. Because they were holding on to something.”

Frodo: “What are we holding on to, Sam?”

Sam: “That there’s some good in this world, Mr. Frodo. 

And it’s worth fighting for.”

 Welcome to my movie, midwifery in the days of COVID-19.