Photos Courtesy of CreateHerStock
When we began family planning, my partner presented the idea to hire a midwife. At the time, he was in business school conducting a case study on the business model of midwifery services. He quickly became intrigued and impressed by the work of midwives. Initially, I was resistant.
“No, give me the epidural. Give me all the pain relief possible. I don't want to feel a thing!”
As we began to research midwifery services, it was difficult to ignore the horrors and lack of care offered to Black birthing parents in the American healthcare system. By the time I became pregnant with our first (who we loved tenderly for the 12 short weeks we carried her), the choice was made: I would have a midwife. After losing Aubree, our angel baby, fear around childbirth dissipated. I focused less on any perceived pain of birthing and, instead, focused on the type of experience that I wanted to have as I brought my rainbow baby into the world. I have been blessed to have three Black midwives alongside me for my birthing journeys.
I remember someone asking me if I’d ever want to become a doula or midwife. “You’d be so great at it!”
I chuckled and said, “Maybe in another life.” I did think I would be a great birthworker because I love the sacred act of sitting with someone during a difficult time. Helping them through what may be one of the toughest situations of their lives. Working to provide as much safety and comfort as they push toward their greatest joy. I love the process of birthing, which is essentially pressure waves (or contractions) coming in (usually) regular intervals. As you get closer to that big moment when you get to meet your baby, those pressure waves become more frequent and more intense. As my friends and family members have begun having children, I’ve enjoyed being their emotional support, a motivator even if I can’t be with them in the birthing room.
I realize now that the “other life” in which I hoped to be a midwife exists here, now, in this moment.
Last year, I discovered that I am the descendant of midwives. My great-great-grandmother, Marybelle, and her sister, Vera, were birthworkers in Schley County, Georgia. Grandmother Marybelle and Aunt Vera also happened to be businesswomen and entrepreneurs. They were root workers and healers, medicinewomen. Midwives were well-respected in the community. In fact, midwives were called on for communal comfort and care, before and after childbirth. In his book, Reminiscences of Sea Island Heritage, Ron Daise writes of midwives on St. Helena Island, South Carolina, “When patients insisted she stay with them even though the situation wasn’t an emergency, she remedied them with advice.” Daise goes on to quote Maggie “Miss Mary” Smalls’s account: I would just politely give them consolation. I told them not to worry. When their time came, they would know...
The communal care of Black midwives extended beyond the birthing room. This is the work my Ancestors provided and the ancestral gift that flows through my veins.
I am a mystical midwife.
I am eager to assist you in birthing your purposes, your businesses, your best and highest good because I believe all of your aligned dreams and desires already exist--they are universes inside of us. We carry them inside our imaginations in seed form but sometimes we need water to nourish them. Sometimes we need to till the earth, to break up the fallow ground to make room around those dreams so the seed can flourish. Sometimes we need to awaken hope in our lives. Then, when all of that is done, we have to carry the dream, the vision, and the hope through the gestation period.
My work as a tarot practitioner is to help you on that journey.
What’s most vital about a midwife’s job isn’t delivering the baby, but the necessary work of aftercare for the child and parent. The moments after a baby is born is when the child and birthing parent need the most tender and attentive care. Birthworkers don't leave you once the baby’s born until they’re sure you’re good. They offer guidance on how to care for yourself and this new bundle of joy. Larisha "Rish" Stone of The 9 Minds Radio Show teaches that since grand midwives were also members of the community, they continued to walk through life with those babies they birthed, offering healing, assistance, and advice when needed most. The medicine they offered wasn’t only for the body; they knew how to soothe the soul and spirit, too. Midwives were like community counselors, therapists by proxy. They didn't have the degrees but they had the Divine.
I am a tarot practitioner, not a medical or mental health professional. I know my lane. The good medicine I offer comes in the form of channeled messages from the Divine to aid you in what you seek to liberate, become, or create in this life.