The Magical Birth Portal - Witnessing Miracles for a Living - A Love Letter to Birth Work

Inside the Birth Portal: A Sacred Birth Worker’s Story

It’s 3 a.m. when the call comes.

Through the quiet of the night, I hear my phone ringing.

On the other end of the line is a partner’s voice, trembling, charged with anticipation, excitement and uncertainty. In the background, I can hear a woman’s moans, deep, primal and rhythmic.

“She’d like you to come now,” he says.

“I’m on my way,” I whisper back.

I get out of bed, moving gently through the darkness, turning on gentle soft lights to wake me up and guide my way.

The world is silent, suspended between night and day. It appears timeless. 

I make coffee, prepare some sandwiches and snacks to bring with me, splash cool water on my face, and gather what I might need in a bag; a change of clothes, a rebozo, essential oils, combs, little sacred trinkets.

Mostly, what I carry with me is presence.

My gift is my hands & my heart.

When I step outside, the air is cool and clear.

The stars glimmer. The land is sleeping.

I always have butterflies.

They never go away.

That sense of awe and anticipation that comes before witnessing a miracle.

The drive is quiet. Sometimes I sing.

Mostly I breathe and prepare to become empty, to leave my own world behind and enter hers.

When I arrive, I take a deep breath before stepping out of the car.

I let go of anything that’s mine, the day passed, any personal worry, thought, or story.

Because as I cross the threshold into her home, I become the clear channel.

The steady ground she can lean towards. The witness or her power and strength.

The door is unlocked, as they know I'm coming.

I slip inside, leave my shoes by the door, and follow the sound of labor.

The sounds and moans of a woman between worlds.

I find her in her living room only lit up by candles and fairy lights. 

She’s on all fours, moving and sounding with the waves.

I kneel beside her, close my eyes, and attune to her and the space through the consciousness of my womb and my heart.

I can feel her strength. Her trembling heart. Her active surrender and trust in what's unfolding.

After gathering herself from a strong surge she opens her eyes and meet mine, and I see how deep into the birth portal she is.

A faint smile as recognition of my presence before she closes them again and turns within.

We move in the timelessness of labour land side by side.

I stroke her cheek, brush the hair from her face, softly remind her to relax her jaw and to let go of her shoulders, to rest in between the waves.

Because I know, and she knows, that the more she releases, relax and leans into the sensations the more the hormones of love and birth can flow through her.

And that’s how she’ll descend faster and deeper into the portal to meet her baby among the stars.

Birth is a place where time and space dissolve.

The air becomes electric.

It’s like being in the eye of a storm, a holy, sacred storm, where creation itself is happening.

I sit with her, breathing with her, sounding with her.

And then, the shift comes.

The Transition.

The moment when she doubts it all,  when she looks for help outside herself, pacing, restless, saying “I can’t do this.”

This is the threshold moment.

My role is to be her anchor, grounded, calm, unwavering.

To hold the knowing when she forgets. That this is supposed to happen.

That this is normal. This is ancient. This is truth.

Adrenaline floods her body, the sign that her baby is near.

We move together through the hallway, falling to the floor kneeling, breathing, swaying.

Her lover holds her.

And I hold the space.

Then, she gets into the birth pool. The water surrounds her, hot and soothing.

And suddenly there is stillness.

Everything pauses.

She is gifted a grace period before the descent begins.

She rests over the edge of the pool and snores.

It’s always such a blessing when a woman who is fully surrendered into the tiredness and deep altered state can fall into micro sleeps between the surges of bringing her baby earth side.

The room becomes meditation.

Time disappears.

Then the bearing down begins.

The guttural, ancient sounds rise from deep within her.

Sounds she’s never made before, sounds that come from the core of the universe itself.

She opens. She roars.

She rests.

And again. And again.

Until the first glimpse of her baby’s head appears.

She reaches down, feels her baby’s head, that first sacred touch.

Her face shines. “I can feel my baby!” she exclaims.

Tears fill our eyes.

With the next wave, she births her baby’s head into her own hands, her partner’s gaze locked with hers.

And then, the shoulders, the wriggle, the release.

Her baby is born into the warm water.

She lifts her baby to her chest, crying and laughing, her voice filled with pure ecstasy.

Oxytocin floods the room, that unmistakable, holy vibration of love.

Her partner strokes her hair, and together they beam, overwhelmed by joy.

We sit in reverent silence, letting the moment breathe.

Then softly, she whispers, “It’s a girl.”

And there’s laughter. And there's tears.

And there is Gratitude.

A gentle gush a blood in the water signals the placenta’s arrival, the baby’s first mother, the sacred tree of life.

She guides it out herself into a bowl floating beside her.

When she’s ready, we help her out of the pool, wrapping her in towels and love.

She settles into bed, skin to skin with her newborn, the room now bathed in early morning light.

An hour or two passes of snuggles and breastfeeding and gazing at their little one.

We hold a cord-burning ceremony, honoring the placenta with prayers and gratitude before the gentle separation.

I tidy, prepare warm food, and quietly tend to the space around them.

Later, she showers and I sit with her in the bathroom as she does guarding her.

She returns to bed, and they nestle in together, a new family born.

Outside, the sun rises.

The world is waking, and I am driving home.

Tired, full and vibrating with love.

The oxytocin still hums through my veins.

I feel high on life itself.

Every time, it’s the same.

Every time, I’m touched by magic.

This is what it means to be a Sacred Birth Worker.

To walk between worlds.

To witness the first breath of life.

To serve the Great Mystery with open hands and a full heart.

If this story stirred something in you,
a curiosity to walk beside women and families in the birth portal,
to learn how to hold space with skill and presence,
then consider this your invitation to the Sacred Birth Worker Mentorship.

It’s a six-month intensive deep online birth worker training and one year long mentorship in community where you are guided in cultivating yourself as the best space holder for birth that you can be.

Find out more and apply here The Sacred Birth Worker Mentorship