Blog #7 - My First Home Birth: Finding Light in the Unknown.

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By: Musings of a Baby Catcher

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I had just moved to the leafy suburb of Surrey, a world away from the fast-paced, familiar streets of East London. Surrey had a quiet charm to it—hedged roads, sweeping driveways, manicured lawns, and houses that didn’t have numbers but names like The Cedars or Windrush Lodge. You could almost hear the quiet hum of wealth in the air.

I had taken a job as a community midwife. It sounded lovely on paper—flexibility, autonomy, fresh countryside air. I ran my own clinics, visited mothers and babies in the postnatal period, and attended home births. Twice a week, I was on call.

And if I’m honest? I dreaded the on-call nights.

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🌌 Navigating the Darkness

Not because I didn’t love midwifery. I absolutely did.

But because driving at night in unfamiliar, dimly lit areas—often without streetlights or house numbers—terrified me. I wasn’t yet confident navigating those twisty rural roads. Fear had a way of wrapping itself around my thoughts like fog on a windscreen. And perhaps it wasn’t just fear of driving.

It was the fear of the unknown.

The fear of being the only one.

The fear of not belonging in a place where everything—from accents to assumptions—felt so different.

Unlike East London, where the energy was multicultural and my team reflected the diversity of our community, I was now the only midwife of colour on my team. That mattered. I felt it in small comments, careful silences, and in the way I sometimes found myself overthinking my tone or choosing my words too cautiously.

And I was pregnant, growing a life while supporting others through their own.

It was a lot.

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🚙 The Call That Changed Me

One night, the phone rang. My heart sank. My first call out.

As always, my car boot was packed with delivery packs, pads, gloves, sterile instruments—the usual tools of a midwife on the move. I felt the tightening of anxiety in my chest. But I called my husband and asked him to drive behind me. It wasn’t just support. It was presence. Partnership. Quiet courage.

(And let’s be honest—if you’re married to a midwife, you’re kind of on call too.)

We made our way through winding roads, past gated homes, until we arrived.

And there it was: one of the most beautiful homes I’ve ever been in.

But the house didn’t strike me as much as what happened inside it.

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👶🏾 Birth, Beauty, and Becoming

It was their first baby. First time parents. Their nerves were visible, but so was their love. The room was warm, gentle, filled with the kind of quiet that feels sacred. They were tender with each other—he held her hand, she rested her head on his shoulder between contractions, and they breathed as one.

I watched the unfolding of birth—but also the unfolding of intimacy, trust, and transformation.

It was beautiful.

And it healed something in me that I didn’t know needed healing.

Because on that night, in that unfamiliar house, in that new job, in that new town—

I felt at home.

I didn’t feel “other.”

I wasn’t afraid.

I was just a midwife, witnessing a miracle, doing what I was born to do.

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🕊️ When Fear Tries to Speak Louder Than Faith

I often think back to that night when fear tries to rise up again—fear of not being enough, of being too different, too visible, too invisible, too whatever.

The truth is:

Fear often disguises itself as wisdom—but it’s just the unknown trying to talk you out of becoming.

Fear almost robbed me of that sacred moment.

Fear almost kept me from walking into that beautiful room.

Fear almost made me miss the confirmation that God had gone ahead of me.

And isn’t that the way with most of our lives?

The doors that open on the other side of trembling knees.

The grace that meets us when we finally say yes.

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✨ Words to Remember

“Fear has a large shadow, but he himself is small.”

— Ruth Gendler

“I learned that courage was not the absence of fear, but the triumph over it.”

— Nelson Mandela

“Do the thing you fear the most and the death of fear is certain.”

— Mark Twain

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📖 A Final Word

I leave you with one of the passages that carried me during those uncertain days:

“So do not fear, for I am with you; do not be dismayed, for I am your God.

I will strengthen you and help you; I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.”

— Isaiah 41:10 (NIV)

Let this be your reminder:

You are never alone.

Even in the dark,

Even when you’re the only one,

Even when everything is unfamiliar—

God is already there.

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With love,

Musings of a Baby Catcher

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