Don’t you find gift giving satisfying? For Gail: Midwife extraordinaire!

I love to give gifts. Honestly, I love to make them. Because I find it so satisfying I’m going to post it on my blog. It’s random perhaps. But it gives me great joy. Here is a recent treat that I gave to my midwife who was my lifesaver—well at least that’s how I see her—during the birth of my first and second child.

“I couldn’t have done it without you!” I said to her after my girl (my second) was born.

“Yes you could have,” she replied calmly.

“Okay, well not so easily.” I said.

With my second child, I had the great pleasure (and pain) of being able to give birth naturally—totally un-medicated. In a process like that, which involves (at least for me) more pain than you can even wrap your mind around—you need support.

Many times during the birth I looked at my midwife and said, “I need help here. How do I get through this?” She would look me in the eye and say calmly, “You’re doing great.” Then she would give me a super helpful technique that I could apply to manage myself through the process.

They say that a woman remembers giving birth to her children her whole life. But what sets the overall vibe for her memory and her experience is not what actually happened, it’s how she was cared for during the process. Having had two very different experiences, but great care in both, I can attest to that.

To Gail, my lovely midwife (who I will undoubtedly remember with great love my whole life long) I recently gave the gift pictured above.