“Birth is a dance and we’re following the woman in labor. We dance around her. She’s the most powerful person in the room because she’s giving life. We stay back until we get the signs–the smell of amniotic fluid and other changes–and then the energy goes up in the room. She calls out to us. The mother has to feel safe in a trusting environment. She has to know she can scream or cry or do whatever she wants and it will be ok, she’ll be loved. She’s got to create the situation in which she will be nourished. She has to own the accomplishment of birth.”
–Juliana Fehr, Ph.D/midwife (quoted in Creating Your Birth Plan by Marsden Wagner)
Inexplicable Ways 