It is 2019’s National Midwifery Week (#NMW2019) and I have spent the last several days looking through some of the most incredible images of midwives walking the journey with birthing families. Reading some of the most empowering, ovary-throbbing and tear-jerking birth stories you could imagine.

Food can have astounding healing powers to the body, spirit and soul. In addition to its nourishing aspects, it has now become a traditional and familiar part of their story. A detail that will so deeply be engrained in their memories that as they move through their lives, raising their children, the moment they smell it again they will instantly be brought back to these two transformational days. Days where their worlds turned on its axis and their family grew.

Her sweet baby was born in the water, en caul (which means that the amniotic sac was still intact) and together with her husband, they gently and confidently lifted her to the surface, expertly and intuitively removing the caul from her face. Baby Ryan was born into the arms of a family that will accept her for everything that she is and will nurture her as she becomes anything she desires.