Legacy

legacy

/ˈleɡəsē/

…the long-lasting affect of a particular set of events, actions, etcetera that occurred in the past, or the impact of a person’s life…

…something imparted by or received from someone or something from the past…

I recently learned when a midwife attends to a birthing woman whose birth she also attended, it’s called a legacy birth…

Ever since learning that, the idea of legacy has been swirling around inside me…

The idea of affect…

The idea of impact…

The idea of impartation…

The idea… the realization the merging of an event with words, with thoughts, with intents, with hopes, with dreams, with actions, with reactions, and even with omissions has the power to set the strings of our existences vibrating for generations and generations…

It made me remember what I do, what I say, and what is happening today is likely more significant than I’m generally aware of…

But today I’m actually more generally aware…

Life is such a thing! Grievous and exhilarating and horrifying and gorgeous and excruciating and humbling and exquisite forever and always all at once!

Three weekends ago we attended three births. Three beautiful women, three beautiful families, three beautiful babies. Two beautiful water births and one hoped-for waterbirth turned cesarean. One of those waterbirths was experienced by both mom and baby as traumatic as, of course, was the cesarean birth…

Those births occurred on the heels of three months filled with fifteen beautiful births…

And those fifteen births followed the entirety of my adulthood filled with almost seven hundred births amidst a thousand plus pregnancies, all beautiful in their own ways, but experiences which span a full range of possibilities——from homebirths to missed births to transfers to cesarean sections, from vigorously wailing babies to the silence of miscarriages and stillbirths, from tremendous victories to heartrending defeats.

Sometimes at my best. Sometimes at less than my best. All of me, from my best to my less irrevocably affecting the lives of others for the better or for otherwise or for somewhere in between…

Lots and lots to sit with…

Lots to learn…

Also, lots and lots and lots of good.

Through the last two weeks I celebrated my thirtieth year catching babies, as well as the tenth anniversary of my one and only “legacy birth,” and then this week, right on my own son’s 29th birthday, I helped a lovely little family bring their third baby into the world!

I’ve actually been able to help this lovely little family bring all three of their babies into the world! Their first baby was born four winters ago, right before that “bomb cyclone” snowstorm! Their second baby was born two springs later on the very day we moved into our new house! And then, here this year, their third baby!

Baby number three was born on the same bed, in the same room, of the same house his sisters were born on and in. He came in his waters——our sixth en caul birth since November——and into his father’s hands and the hands of his oldest sister!

Ah! I was there again!

I was there with mama and dad and those sweet, sweet girls! I was there with my own homeborn daughter and my seventh homeborn grandbaby. I was there on my homeborn son’s birthday. I was there with my friend and our senior student, Betsy. I was there with my friend and fellow midwife, Rebecca. I was there with my friend and photographer extraordinaire, Peyton. I was there with my new friend and our brand-new student, Bekah.

I was just swept away by all of this——by all of it——and I’ve wondered ever since, what new legacy, what new legacies were born?

Mom and daddy have given me permission to share some of the wonderful photographs Peyton captured for them.

Enjoy!