Tomorrow morning the birth center where my children were both welcomed to this world will close. They will still have appointments there at the clinic, but the actual birth rooms will no longer be used. They have opened a new "Midwifery Center" at the hospital for the midwives where that will focus on low-intervention, physiological birth. They will still allow water births and families will be able to go home after 4 hours, just like they could at the birth center. They have real beds instead of hospital beds, and the requisite family waiting area and kitchenette. All of the boxes are checked and it should be just the same, only in the hospital.
But it's not the same. It looks like a hospital, it feels like a hospital. It is sterile.
About a decade ago, before we were able to even seriously consider having babies, A was perusing my copy of "Our Bodies, Ourselves" and read about births attended by midwives, home births, and free-standing birth centers. Being raised by a mother who had a home birth and avoided doctors when at all possible, my response to her exciting new knowledge was probably somewhere along the lines of "Yeah, so?" Her next tidbit was that there was a birth center less than a mile from us.
I remember being more freaked out that she looked this up than excited, we were still years away from being able to start a family. However, we both established well-woman care there so we could get a feel for it and start meeting the midwives. They were lovely, and we were sure this was the place for us.
Fast forward to 2012, we finally had conceived E and we were nervous and excited to start our prenatal visits and centering classes. Since we had been foster parents, we had already had a taste of the marginalization same sex couples face as parents, but we weren't prepared for the onslaught that came with being pregnant. The birth center was our haven. We knew we would be included and valued. We knew that our care providers would make an effort to use language that was respectful. When they didn't know they best way to talk about something, they would ask instead of being awkward and uncomfortable or downright insulting. We could have conversations and were empowered to be in control our health instead of just being told what to do. It was refreshing.
When we finally were able to tour the birth rooms, they were each carefully decorated in a different style and we fell in love with the blue room. That September, we welcomed E to the world surrounded by strength and love.
When it was time for A's pregnancy with C, we couldn't wait to get to know our new Centering class and be surrounded by this wonderful community once again. This time we would regularly have to go back to a birth room to check A's blood pressure, it seemed to get stage fright. Often we would end up in the green beachy room, and decided that would be where C was born.
Since then I have been able to be involved on the community advisory board and my friendship and respect for this amazing group of strong women only grows. As we learned about the plans to close, I was shown the true depth of spirit they have poured into the birth center. My own sadness and nostalgia were nothing compared to the fierce protective force they showed as we tried to save it.
The new hospital unit is a welcome addition to the options for birth in Tucson. But it also marks the end, because with this new door opening, the closed doors in its wake are being glossed over and brushed aside. Not only to the parents who do not want to be in a hospital when to meet their child for the first time, but to those nurses and midwives who searched out the birth center as the model they believed in and would dedicate themselves to. There are many of these women that I now consider my friends. It is for them that I mourn.
This space was made sacred as it bore witness to babies taking their first breaths. To mothers' blood, sweat, and tears. To growing families. To the midwives and nurses who calmly supported each birth, giving away a little bit of themselves with each long night and beautiful new beginning.
Today marks a different sort of new beginning. I hope that, in time, the new space will have the quiet, heavy feel of a sacred space. A place where time seems to stand still. Waiting for that next new beginning.
