Hello and Welcome to Mother Instinct!
My name is Ella and I am a mother of a young man and a trained nurse and midwife. I enjoyed my general nursing training, but it was only when I did my midwifery that my passion started to take seed. About 30 years ago I found Ina May Gaskin’s book, Spiritual Midwifery in a small esoteric bookstore in Cape Town. I was hooked; it became my constant companion for the next couple of years, finding inspiration in the stories. But that is where it stayed, in my head and in my thoughts. I did not share it with anyone.
During this period, I worked as a midwife in several of our private clinics. The birthing of my son took place in the hospital where I worked, surrounded by my colleagues and friends. The birth turned out to be a typical hospital birth, with interventions left, right and centre. Yet, there was lots of laughter and excitement and I have no regrets.
I started teaching antenatal classes at night after the birth of my son, and it was only then that I realised what powerful influence the medical fraternity had over pregnant mothers and how easily they could manipulate the outcomes of births. I was a stay at home mom for 3 years before I started working full time again. It was great being able to spend those years with my son, I breastfed him for 3 years and we had a wonderful time together.
As the years went by, I explored the different birthing ways and found comfort in birthing the mother’s way, by using instinct and inner guidance. I was send to Paris by my work to attend a Midwifery Today conference in 2001. Tertia, my sister came over on the last two days so that we could spend a further couple of days visiting family in the Nederlands.
That week and the two days we spent together in Paris was the final sway I needed.
Women need to be empowered and given the correct information so that they can be allowed to listen to their hearts and instinct.
And the medical fraternity need to sit up and start realising what they are doing by taking a natural process of life and turning it into a medical procedure.
I’m Elsabé’s sister Tertia and she is my best friend!
I’m a mother of two boys, a wife of a loving supporting husband. I have trained and working full time as a Doula and Childbirth Educator for the last 10 years.
My two boys were both born at home. My firstborn was a water birth, born in the afternoon after a textbook labour. My youngest was born on a mattress in the living room at midnight during a stormy night after a very quick labour.
The way I perceived birth was revealed to me when I tagged along with Elsabé to a midwife conference in Paris, France. I sat in on a talk and video about water birth and cried as a “reborn” throughout! I knew then from that moment on, without any doubt, that that was what I would want to experience one day when it is time for me to give birth.
The excitement of meeting so many wonderful midwives and gaining the knowledge of how birth is supposed to be just grew, and today, together with my sister we want to spread the word….