Reflections on Navigating Birth Work and Survivorhood with Care and Compassion

by Rise Osby

“I’m literally on the bed.

The bed is on the floor.

The floor is the building.

The building in the ground.

The ground is tethered to Earth’s core.

I can release.”

These are the things I tell myself when my body is in knots from head to toe. When my shoulders refuse to spread out across the bed, giving space and breath to my wide and open back.

Something is happening because something happened. Emotionally, mentally, physically. In the past, in my projected future, right now. And in response, I am cramping up into the tiniest ball I can manage, knowing this is the opposite of what I need to feel safe, until I tell myself:

“I’m literally on the bed. The bed is on the floor. The floor is in the building. The building is the ground. The ground is tethered to Earth’s core. I can release.”

Listening to the Call to Be a Care Worker

It’s a start. And as a Survivor who is also a birth worker, practices like these are essential to my overall wellness and my work. Especially, as I support birthing people who are also Survivors.

It was a long time before I considered myself a Survivor. Of all the things to have imposter syndrome about.  Mostly because it was not until I was a young adult that I acknowledged what I remembered and remembered what I had forgotten. And a wave came over me; it was a crash I’d be healing from, and loudly, for 10 years. I’m still healing; it never stops. However, what has changed, even as I was harmed again later, within the medical system, is my approach to connecting to and centering ME in my life. This healing (and the challenges involved) show up in my care work journey.

I have always wanted to be a care worker. Always.

But I started in a place where I thought to show up was to give everything. I neglected caring for myself and my well-being. I was over-giving and over-committing which led to a wild streak of resentment and loneliness. I was perpetually exhausted. But I kept going. Because caring for others was not only something that I truly loved, but showed me the ways I needed and yearned for care but was scared to ask for. It was a recipe for burnout.

Grappling with My Own Healing

Years of being a Black queer disabled birthworker in a large range of hospitals from all over the city (Potawatomi, Ojibwe and Odawa territory, also known as Chicago), supporting Black and Brown birthing parents vs white, young parents to “advanced age,” queer, trans and nonbinary folks, and Survivors and the intersections had worn me out. I’ve witnessed some wild shit. I’ve witnessed some enraging shit. And once, something so terrible, my physical body froze in place. I had my own trauma response in addition to my clients.

I got it together, spoke up to the provider in the room, held my client, and we breathed through.

But that moment showed me that another journey in my emotional wellness needed to begin. Because I felt terribly guilty. Because I felt like I let my client down with my trauma. Because I could no longer sleep off, journal, or favorite food my way out of not being okay after a hard moment. 

Because the more I healed my own trauma, the more I was able to notice and be impacted by others. This wasn’t a bad thing, but it called for a bigger system of support. The grief of being human ate me up. 

Some of the questions I began to ask myself include:

  • What is my plan for showing up for this birth?

  • What space do I need to process? What do I do when something triggers my own trauma?

  • What is about me and what is not? What risks am I willing to take to show up for and with my client?

  • What tools do I have now and what tools do I still need to be grounded and to re-ground when I become activated? What needs to be in my personal first aid kit? What is my pre/during/post birth ritual? What is my communication style and how could that impact my client’s care?

  • What is my communication style when I am activated or frustrated and how could that impact my client’s care? What does repair look and feel like, when I don’t or cannot show up for my client during a difficult moment?

So many birth workers still provide services in the ways that medical providers do, even when we know what it means to not feel safe in those systems. In an attempt to disrupt those systems, we can fall into over-giving and over-committing; we can forget ourselves in the midst of showing up until we are loudly and sometimes violently reminded of our own stories– our own emotional selves. It also does not help how much we as birth workers are demonized and surveilled by the medical system and how hard it is to financially sustain our practices.

Learning Balance

I want every birth worker who is also a Survivor (and every birth worker, in general) to know that you can de-center yourself without discarding yourself. You can balance your needs and the needs of your clients. You do not have to work yourself to bone for your clients to feel held. Being triggered while doing this work is a matter of when not if.  It is essential for you to consider yourself.

It starts with the questions you ask yourself, the little promises you make to yourself daily like “I will eat breakfast before noon,” and how often you keep them.

It continues in the ways that you build with yourself over time. And every time you choose self compassion over shame.

I have some questions for birth workers who are survivors that I hope will support you in your healing and healing practitioner journeys.

* What is your why?

* What is your story? How is your story connected to your care work?

* Who is your back up for your client and who is your back up for you?

* How can you prepare for a birth that centers your needs as well as your clients? Can you visualize this and/or feel into it?

* Who shows up for you? Is it enough?

* What are the phrases, beliefs, and values you can remind yourself of when you are in a difficult space?

* What are your most consistent joys?

Know that these questions also apply to every scope of birth work and the many ways we show up: postpartum, grief and loss, abortion, fertility, and so on. And obviously because of so many factors, particularly time, money and community, not all these questions you may be able to act on. But it’s a start. 

How You Can Work With Me

In addition to birth and care work, I also offer meditation, peer support, and trauma informed and gender affirming care education for birth and care workers and all folks navigating the medical industrial complex. Let’s work together to do this work differently, to tend to ourselves AND our clients, and to heal in community. Reach out here if you’d like to connect!


Bio:

Rise (they/them) is a queer, Black disabled genderfluid femme. Rise is a meditation facilitator; gender affirming and trauma informed care and disability justice educator; poet, and birth/postpartum/grief&loss/abortion care worker. They have been a healing practitioner for over 10 years and are deeply invested in disability justice, access, centering wellness for Black queer folk, trauma education, and rest. They are equally invested in daydreaming and hanging out with their support pup, Jelly Ferocious. They love watermelon, elephants, mangos and sloths. You can find them at www.riotousroots.com 

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