Editor’s Note: Happy Friday! This morning we have Deepa talking about the incredibly powerful and moving birth story that inspired her to become a midwife. Here she is:

They say that a mark of happiness is whether you get any pleasure out of the question, “what do you do?”

I often get asked why I became a midwife. Yes, it does give me some satisfaction simply because this question implies that the profession of midwifery itself requires a calling of some sort. And perhaps it does.

I vividly remember the first evening my fellow midwifery students and I gathered at the funky northeast Portland home of one of our professors. There was a bold colored life size painting of a nude pregnant woman above the couch in her main room. I can still see it, although that evening was now over a decade ago.

What an eclectic bunch we were. Different colors, different sexual preferences and different backgrounds, but all of the same gender and with the same reason for being there – a strong desire to become a midwife.

One of the professors mingled with myself and another student that I was starting to get to know. In the upcoming two years of graduate school, all of us would end up knowing each other almost better than ourselves. Now, we are all scattered around and probably not as close as we once were. I miss those sisters. It was a very life changing group to be in.

The teacher remarked that at previous events each student would be handed a flower while she told us about her calling to become a midwife.” “Why don’t you do it anymore?” we both questioned almost simultaneously. “Well, I suppose it could be done,” she said.

The host emptied flowers out of a vase and we sat in a circle and shared. It was a warm place to be - an impenetrable circle. I can’t remember what the others said, or even what I said since it was probably one of the first times I was asked “why midwifery?” That got me thinking.

I can’t say that there was one tangible moment where I decided on the path of midwifery. It was accumulating occurrences that brought me here. But, as I write this within the sunny mountains of San Diego County there is one such memory that I am reminded of.

The Latino culture has had a huge influence upon southern California. You would be hard pressed to find a street here without a Spanish name. The other day we passed a restaurant, called “Alejandro’s” and the name catapulted me back to 1992.

Then, I had just a couple of years left of college and decided to take the January term in Chicago. I enrolled in a course that coupled teaching inner-city kids with lectures by political activists. In short, it was a much needed eye-opener for this cocky and somewhat sheltered 20-year-old.

Renny Golden was speaking on a cold January day in a tenement building’s makeshift lecture room. She was the theologian of El Salvador’s “Sanctuary Movement”.

In the 1980’s the corrupt militia of El Salvador (heavily funded by US president Ronald Reagan’s administration) was responsible for the raping and pillaging of hundreds of innocent civilians. It was against government/military policy to harm anyone inside a church. Renny, a nun herself, helped form transportation for the oppressed to get to, and remain in, churches. Renny and the team were particularly interested in helping women who were part of the resistance movement.

That day this skinny, spectacle wearing, fifty-something, renegade nun told us a story about a woman she would never forget. I have not forgetten the story…

There was to be a major press conference in El Salvador to discuss the world’s growing concern over the escalating violence in El Salvador. Most of the press for developed nations was there. Renny was also there and sat anxiously as it was about to commence.

As if out of nowhere a tiny local woman appeared. She was carrying a baby and made her way to the stage. All cameras were rolling and no one stopped her. She adjusted the microphone, held the child over her head and said: “I was beaten and raped by over 30 so-called military men. From that incident this child was conceived. I want to show the world that out of evil something good can come. This is my son Alejandro, he is my hope.”

I was so fixated on what Renny was saying, that I felt I was right there watching the victim speak. All I could think of was that woman going through labor pain for a child conceived in torture. All I wanted to do was to help her with her pain and join all resistance movements for oppressed people from the history of time.

So, being a midwife is a calling. It is also like joining a resistance movement. Midwives seek to give women what they want, what they need and what they deserve.