How wonderful that you care so much about babies and mothers and birth that you are willing to be part of an all volunteer organization dedicated to one goal: Helping Others TRUST BIRTH!

Everything at this point is not quite jelled, but before we go any further I want to talk to you a little about purpose, truth and trust, and how TBI came to be.

The idea of the Trust Birth Initiative kept me awake at night for weeks. I tried to dismiss it as being too difficult, as I had a similar idea a year ago that I eventually talked myself out of. But this one would not go away. I am already extremely busy and do not need another job. But you know what? There is a difference in jobs and purpose. I don’t think I have time for any more jobs in my life, but the fire in my heart tells me that there is time for more purpose. Judging from the enthusiasm of those of you who are interested in becoming Trust Birth Facilitators/Leaders, I know I am not alone. Yes, we are taking on another job, but we believe we have a very vital purpose to fulfill.

I have spent a lot of time thinking about the meaning of the trust part of TRUST BIRTH. Trust cannot be defined apart from faith. Because I have faith that we are made to give birth and were designed by someone much smarter than we are, I can trust that birth was meant to work. My own trust in birth is very much a part of who I am, my faith in God, and what I believe about trust and truth and purpose. Joining the Trust Birth Initiative may have no spiritual connotation for you, but I had an epiphany that brought it all into clear focus for me.

As you may already know, I am working on a book entitled Coming Home to Birth. In addition to many of your stories, I will tell my own story of how I went from being a naive, uneducated compliant patient one moment, whose only preparation had been to read Having A Baby Can Be A Scream, by Joan Rivers ——— to being a bold, determined, and very vocal woman who threatened physical harm to my obstetrician if he came close to me with anything sharper than a piece of paper. That change did not happen over months or days or weeks but within a minute. Here is the epiphany: That did not come from me, but from within me. It was already there. We are born trusting. We have to be taught not to. Trust is part of the package. We are obviously designed to give birth. We must have been born to TRUST BIRTH. We have been taught to ignore what we already know. We have been taught that birth is scary and must be left to the experts. We have been taught a pack of lies.

And here is where we have to acknowledge that trust must be married to TRUTH. Truth has enormous power. Truth is stronger than lies. We need to tell the TRUTH about birth, again and again and again. Trust will follow.

Although I have stated several places up to this point that we will teach women to trust birth, I don’t want that to become part of our vernacular. I want to help women discover or learn that they already trust birth. It is natural and logical to trust birth. It is unnatural and illogical not to. We will help them rediscover that and nurture it, and encourage them so that they can help other women do the same.

At this point, honestly, we still have a lot of decisions to make. In the first few months we will be designing and re-designing the topics and guidelines based on what you tell us about what you learn in your meetings. We should be able to be a more organized effort after a few months, but for now we are all pioneers. Bear with us as we find our way.

I have asked a few women to come on board as a part of the TBI Executive board because they share my vision. We have HUGE dreams for the Trust Birth Initiative. We want to help thousands of women come to a place where they realize that they TRUST BIRTH……this year! And we are determined to find a way to do that. But we cannot do it alone. We need you. We need your dedication and determination. We need your heart and your love for babies and mothers and birth.

We will, by necessity, be very careful with the TBI name and be sure that our efforts are in line with our purpose. Our leaders will have to meet standards of integrity and enthusiasm and birth trust. If you feel that you possess those qualities and you we welcome you to take the next step in the application process.

We have the potential to effect a historical cultural paradigm shift, which will result in a power shift, returning the ownership of birth back to the women who have come to trust birth.

I truly hope you will be able to be a part of that.

Carla