TheRiver and Its Banks
Image: ‘My Birth’ by Varmen Winant
“You be the river darling, we’ll be the banks”
These words were whispered softly to my client by her partner, as she moved through the depths of labour. It made my heart swell then and it still does.
In one of our birth prep sessions, I had asked them to imagine labour and birth as a river – mutable and shifting. And while the river carves its own pathway, moving freely this way and that, it is also supported by the river banks. There’s a responsive and dynamic relationship between them.
The fluidity of birth – often wild and changeable – might feel overwhelming for those of us who lean more towards order, structure, and predictability. And so it is the steady river banks – those trusted support people – that hold us through the eddies and currents, the raging and the calm.
Walking alongside families as a birth companion, I’m reminded again and again that birth cannot be tamed or controlled. That rites of passage – like many initiations – require both softness and strength. Grief and joy. Deep surrender and determination. Childbirth invites us to embrace the mystery, to bravely step into the unknown.
However the mystery of birth and parenthood unfolds, it will demand a lot from you. It will ask you to dig deep, to be stretched far beyond what you thought possible, and to release the notion of perfectionism. Working in this space, walking alongside birthing people and their families has continued to teach me this, over and over.
When partners and other trusted support people show up in the birth space with presence and awe, with trust in their person and the birth process, and with curiosity surrounding the possibility of their own transformation — magic happens.
4.11.2022
