Our Birth Team (so far)

by April

When Trae and I moved back to my hometown of Grant, FL, so many opportunities to revisit and rediscover my roots have emerged -- from the rich network of friends from my years at Kashi school in Sebastian and Palm Bay High School, to the amazing little community of Grant, with its many layers of history and array of activities going on at the local level (including a completely resident-run, off-the-grid library, Zumba & yoga classes, a resident-run historical house, and a regionally-renowned Seafood Festival run completely on citizen passion & power!)

Not least of the delights we found was the fact that Pam Peach, the mother of my old buddy from her post-high school, pre-New College period (also known as "my semester at Brevard Community College) was not only still a midwife, but that her daughter Muraiha (my BCC buddy) had also gone on to receive training and joined Pam's team as a midwife too!

I was so happy to learn this, in part because Muraiha's house (or "Myrrh's" house as we called it) -- i.e. Pam's home -- was always a haven of comfort for our quirky little friend's... you know, that place where you always feel at home to spend hours, crash for the night, and just be yourself. This was always thanks to Pam, who had not only turned her home into a magical kind of space with trickling fountains and enchanting decorations everywhere, but just effused an air of embracing maternal ease and happy welcome. To know that Pam was still around, and now practicing with Muraiha as a mother-daughter team, made me so happy and affirmed even more that we had made the right move at the right time back to my hometown.

We also came to learn more than I'd known before about Pam: that she has a solid 40 years of experience, with no loss of either infant or mother; that she was the first licensed midwife in the entire region, and one of the first in Florida; and that pretty much all the current midwives practicing in the Brevard/Indian River area were trained by her. Together, Muraiha & Pam also bring unique experience having worked in countries with resources much different than ours like Haiti and Mexico in areas removed from our kinds of medical facilities and sometimes with sparse nutritional resources as well.

And of course, as midwives, Pam and Muraiha both bring the kind of experience-based faith in women, women's bodies, and instincts that I have always been drawn to within the natural birthing community. Unlike our earlier visits to conventional medical facilities, I come away not only with all of my and my husband's (many!) questions answered in full, but a strong sense of my own power to accomplish the huge feat of birth. Since this is perhaps the most nagging anxiety I have been living with, and aligns very deeply with my values and beliefs, the joys of having a team like this by our side are SUCH a form of comfort as the due date hastens near.

We are so excited to have this strong, solid, and totally lovable pair of hearts, minds and hands with us on this journey to support the growth and--pretty soon--the entrance of our little one into the world.