It’s not easy to prepare parents for the patience that is sometimes needed during a long birth. However, I have attended long births many times and I think it is essential to let couples know that sometimes, that is just how a birth needs to be and a long labor, while a variation from normal, is still normal.
The long births I have attended have taught me so much about the patience that is needed for some mother-baby dances. These lessons in patience have certainly come from caregivers (usually out-of-hospital midwives), but more often the profound lessons I have learned about strength in waiting have come from the laboring mothers and their partners whose trust in normal birth sometimes peaks my own.
I have repeatedly been in...
