A birth report about our real baby, the art of midwifery and what drives me as co-founder and Lena's partner at MORE MIDWIVES (unabridged version)

Being a midwife is not a hobby. MORE MIDWIVES.

These are just buzzwords. But the stories behind each individual birth can often only be seen if you leave the surface and look at the heroic deeds that take place in the quiet of the room during birth.

We agreed with our midwife Christiane that we should only call when we were ready to go to the delivery room. Lena definitely didn't want to leave too early. And so we arrived just in time. Some time later our child would have been born in the car.


Before Lena became a midwife, I was more of a midwife when our first child was born.
passive, because I had heard about the whole process of birth through media and stories without thinking about it in more detail. I had slipped into the role of a patient and not actively participated in what was happening. That was a shame. With every contraction I was more worried that something would happen, instead of letting the birth take its natural course.

I wanted to do it differently this time.

Not intervening, but letting things take their natural course - that was the moment when I really gained respect for the skills of a midwife. Because when the cervix was already very wide open, Lena suddenly said she wanted an epidural. Of course, she had secretly hoped that everything would happen naturally. But I think you can quickly throw your resolutions out the window when you are in the pain of labor. With Lena's wish, the topic was actually off the table for me: the anesthetist is coming, anesthesia, that's it, the end!

However, Christiane apparently had a different intuition. Her midwife instinct was clearly telling her that more or less just a few good contractions would be enough for Lena to give birth to our child. Christiane first ran a nice, well-tempered bath. To take the stress away and, with all her experience, to focus attention on the non-medical: breathing, being with yourself and letting Lena and I be a couple. She gave us this space and it worked out perfectly. While Christiane was able to get everything around the bathtub ready for the birth with our doula (doula support is material for a second part), Lena was able to get ready to let go with my hugs (and crying fits).

So when the anesthetist knocked an hour later, Christiane had already told him to go. Because even before the final contractions started and the bath water was still running, she apparently already knew that the time had come. This moment was really the most impressive for me: sending a doctor away with complete confidence in your own abilities, your own intuition and thus strengthening the couple's sense of community. And that's how it happened - our child, without any medical intervention.


Just as there is art in crafts, painting, cooking, music or performance, there is also the art of midwifery. I understood that completely at that moment. With infinite gratitude for the wonderful daughter that was given to us through this midwifery skill, I was left with this feeling of deep respect.

" Creativity means not copying... "

(Jaques Maximin, 1987)

Certainly also a motivation for MORE MIDWIVES , because true art has its own style and can often be copied, but never achieved.