In most cases, I feel like the English language falls terribly short in expressing the intricacies of human existence and emotion. One phrase where I do think it is spot on is "laboring with".
On a technical level, this means providing support to a woman throughout the stages of delivering a baby. This could be providing water, massaging, verbal coaching, or suggestions for techniques and positions. These are all things you learn and observe in nursing school, but in the US they are often performed for the laboring woman, at least in part, by a significant other, friend, or family member. The nurse checks in frequently and remains for the duration of active pushing, but the nurse is not the sole provider of that care.
When we walk into the labor and delivery ward of St. Theres hospital, the labor support looks very different. Whether due to policy or culture, laboring women have no one with them other than the hospital staff, who are low in numbers and greatly overworked. Our addition as two nursing students and a nurse midwife almost doubled the number of staff.
Here, standing beside cracked exam tables, under the half-hearted breeze of a single fan, assisted by a one-wheeled IV pole, a Doppler and the power the human spirit, is where I learned what it means to "labor with".
You don't know the meaning of laboring with until your skin smells like someone else's sweat, until you squat beside a woman to rub her back as she moans through another contractions, until you feel your abs tense with every one of her pushes, until you literally support her body with your own.
By the time her howls reach a climax and you hear that first gurgley cry, it's easy to feel like you've somehow birthed that baby alongside her. But one look up at her sweat-streaked face and exhausted smile is enough to remind you who deserves all the praise and more.
This is the privilege of laboring with. You get to see the incredible beauty of a body that can build another tiny life, to feel the awesome strength that brings that tiny life into the world, to witness the moment when a mother first sees her child. No matter where you are or what you have, birth shows you these things.
