Christine Sutherland - Birthing in Good Hands: Holistic Massage for Pregnancy, Labor, and Babies

It was 1977. I had driven across the country to be at a home birth after receiving an invitation from a young man named Jim, a former massage student of mine. He called me from northern Ontario to request my attendance at the birth of a woman he had fallen in love with. I didnt hesitate. After giving notice at my job, I drove east, excited to be invited to the birth.

It all seemed right. Right to go east again, right to accept the invitation, right to answer the calling.

I had a place to stay in Toronto at my friend Rose Maries house on Beverley Street in the heart of the city. That spring, everyone in our house was on alert for a call from the North. Sarilyn, my housemate at Rosies place, was going to come as well. The woman Jim was in love with, Judy, was Sarilyns best friend.

The call came early one morning. Judys water had broken and she was in active labor. Sarilyn and I headed three hours north, my hardy antique Renault climbing the snowy, white hills of Muskoka. We arrived in the backcountry fortified with coffee and sweets from our travels. The cabin looked inviting. Smoke poured out of the chimney as we ran to the door.

We found them in the loft, Jim beside Judy, Judy on her back pushing. I still remember the intense heat. Sarilyn and I were dressed for winter, with turtlenecks, corduroy pants, and long sleeves. We were a colorful contrast to our birthing partners bare skin and scanty attire in the steamy woodstove warmth.

Jim had a heavy meditative vibe going with Judy that Sarilyn and I dove right into. The air was thick with the essence of relaxation. Sarilyn and I each took up a leg and began massaging Judys inner thighs. Instinctively, we worked as a team to relax her muscles.

All were full of enthusiasm for this delivery, but none of us had ever seen the birth of a human being.

I had been on call for a dairy near Salmon Arm, in the heart of British Columbia, during calving season about five years earlier. The farmers had called me at my request to attend the birth of a calf. I had met them on a Saturday morning at the dump, where the farmers congregated to talk farm talk. I was hoping to solicit an opportunity to see life start in a live barnyard birth, and make the course I was taking at the Centre for Human Development more relevant. Our meditations on the birth and death of ideas seemed so abstract when I had no idea what a birth of any kind was about, so I went looking for real life. I went looking for a farmer.

My class caught wind of what I was up to, and when the farmers call came in, about six of us jumped into a borrowed VW station wagon and tore up the mountain to the dairy farm. We watched the farmer loop ropes around the calfs hooves and work with the mother with each contraction to help pull the calf out. We watched that calf come to life, find its legs, stand, and instinctively look for its mothers milk. We felt intoxicated as we raced back to the rest of our classmates, jubilant with our experience. After that, I attended many barnyard births, but this would be my first human birth.

This time, it was not hooves that were presenting themselves. The rhythmic opening of Judys cervix revealed a hairy, scrumpled bunch of skin. I thought something was going terribly wrong and I did not know how to break it to Judy that her insides were coming out! I worried about what we were going to do and wished I had taken more first aid courses or read more books or had prepared for labor and delivery with my friends nursing textbooks.

Not wanting to alarm anyone, I said nothing. Sarilyn and I just kept breathing with Judy, massaging and keeping the energy calm.

Then a head popped out. That hairy skin was actually scalpa babys scalp! It blinked and slowly rotated on its own. Now the babys head was facing Judys inner thigh and we were waiting for the next contraction. The babys head looked perfect.

Then I saw a whitish, bluish cord wrapped twice around the babys neck. Without thinking, I grabbed the cord and slipped my fingers underneath. I loosened its grip and tugged on the part that was still inside Judy. The babys head was still at the entrance to her birth canal. Sarilyn held Judys legs as I gently loosened the lasso and the baby slid past his moms grip.*