05/09/2026
Anyone who knows me knows I say this all the time. It was never about the catch. I don’t need to be the hands that caught your baby to know I was your midwife. That has never been the point.
Birth isn’t a tick box, it isn’t a trophy, and it isn’t something we get to say we did. It belongs to you. Your body, your baby, your family, your choice.
When you find your midwife, find the one who sees all of that. Someone who doesn’t just care about your birth, but cares about the people standing beside you. The hands holding yours, the tears in the corner of the room, the grandmother trying not to cry, the partner watching the woman they love do something extraordinary. Find someone who sees the whole picture.
I have always believed in staying in my lane. I know when I don’t know. I know when I need another set of hands. I know when medicine has its place. And I also know when I am good at what I do. I know when the safest thing I can do is absolutely nothing. To sit back, to watch, to listen, to keep the room calm while the magic quietly unfolds.
This beautiful family opened their arms and let me in. They trusted me with the messy bits, the uncertain bits, the decisions, the fear and the hope. And I got to watch a warrior find her power. Not because somebody gave it to her, because it had been hers all along. She knew she had choices. She knew her voice mattered. And when the moment came, she did exactly what she had always been capable of doing.
There is something incredibly humbling about standing in a birth room and realising you are not needed. Everything you have worked for, all the conversations, all the appointments and all that trust built slowly over months, brings you to a place where you can simply stand back.
I watched a student who had taken the time to truly know this woman stay focused, stay steady and stay strong. Continuity in its purest form. She didn’t need rescuing. The woman didn’t need rescuing. And they didn’t need me swooping in just so I could say I caught the baby. That is midwifery too. Knowing when to step forward and knowing when to step away.
An incredible midwife once taught me (Nic) that if you are going to intervene, intervene well. Do it with purpose.
That has stayed with me. Intervention has a place. Medicine has a place. Home has a place. Hospital has a place. There is no glory in avoiding something that is needed, and there is no glory in doing something just because you can. Everything should have purpose. If I step in, there will be a reason. If I stand back, there will be a reason for that too.
The goal was never the vaginal birth. The goal was never being able to say we did it. The goal was always a mother who felt heard, a baby kept safe, a family held together, and choices respected all the way through.
And then comes my favourite part. Walking into their home afterwards. Seeing the quiet, the exhaustion, the tiny baby curled against the people who waited so long to meet them. Seeing everybody slowly becoming who they were meant to be. Watching the little nuggets grow. Watching a mother realise she really did do that. Watching a family thrive.
That is the bit I carry with me. That is why I keep doing this. Because I take enormous pride in my work. Not because my hands caught a baby, but because sometimes the best thing those hands can do is stay still.
Because I was always meant to be a midwife. And years from now, when these babies are bigger and these photographs are pulled out and somebody tells them the story of the day they arrived, I will be able to look at them and quietly say, I was there. I knew your mum. I knew your family. I watched them become yours.
And I am so bloody proud to say I was their midwife.
