Claire writes: “We were watching, BBC Drama Call the Midwife last night. It’s a historical drama about a group of midwives in London in the 1960s. In yesterday’s episode they were training young medics to deliver a baby. Several things struck me that connected with the work we do at 3D.
- the midwives worked in partnership, engaging with the mothers-to-be and calling them by name. They kept reminding the doctors that they were working with people and to look at them when they were speaking
- the medics wanted to intervene while the midwives kept calm and navigated some complex deliveries. The midwives trusted the mothers to be, and the process of birth, and held their nerve. In one scene, the midwife got her contingency ambulance in place – and it was not needed because the mother managed without
In conversations, it’s easy to turn to tools and techniques, when in fact the person we are with almost always has all the resources they need. They need company. That only works when we can be brave and stay with the process. Coaching is about two people working in partnership in service of the thinking of one of us.
I am struck again by a comment made by Brene Brown in a 2016 interview because coaching and faith have some connections. Neither are an epidural. Both are about companionship on a journey. “I went back to church thinking that it would be like an epidural, like it would take the pain away… that church would make the pain go away. Faith and church was not an epidural for me at all; it was like a midwife who just stood next to me saying, ‘Push. It’s supposed to hurt a little bit.'”
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