When I was pregnant with our first baby at 19, I did what most teenagers of our age do when they want information – I ‘you-tubed’ it. I remember being at home with a large belly pressing into the table in front of me as I typed ‘birth video’ into the tool bar. I spent an hour or more with eyes growing larger and larger watching women scream and sweat their way through what could only be described as a traumatic ordeal. I remember after I stopped watching Errol came home and talked to me about this or that while he stood behind our island bench chatting. I wasn’t listening. Images of my lady bits being torn open were floating around in my head.

Still, that wasn’t going to happen to me – I had been booked into our local birth centre and was planning a beautiful natural birth.

As it happened, my birth ended up a whole lot more like the images I’d planted in my head that night. Scary and upsetting. It did however yield a beautiful healthy baby girl and I was ready to go back for more.

Before I had our second baby, I knew I wanted to have it filmed. Even though I hadn’t yet had a calm birth, I wanted to show how gentle and peacefully babies could be welcomed. I wanted other mothers, especially young mothers like I had been, to see how natural and beautiful birth could be. I wanted to somehow offset the fear. My sister Hailey came to my house in early labour and made the most beautiful documentation of the day we welcomed our son.

I knew I wanted to share it but there was a part of me that hesitated. This was, after all, one the most intimate days of our lives. So special and tender and ours. Did I want this online? Did I want this on youtube? If you’ve been on youtube you will know that as a community they aren’t the loveliest with their feedback. Was it worth the fear I held about it to share it?

That was three years ago and it comes as an easy and happy yes that I can say yes, it was worth it.

In the last 2 years particularly, I have had email after email that remind me that Theo’s birth being online has been positive and the good has always outweighed the hard. Being a mama who works from home can be somewhat isolating and yet within that I have found a way to connect.

This week I got another email from another mama with the attached video. She wrote

“I found your blog a couple of years ago through your sister’s birth video of Theo’s delivery. I was so touched and inspired it made me start looking into natural birth a bit more and I’ve LOVED your subsequent birth documentaries ever since. Two months ago I delivered my first baby totally drug free and had my husband filmed it (as well as he could). I feel I’ve come full circle now to having my own birth video and I’d love to share it with you”

Liesel’s Birth from Tim Tabailloux on Vimeo.

I wanted to share this video with you because not only is it lovely but I am always so in awe when a mama writes to me, that our experience – Theo’s birth could impact someone across the seas. That us welcoming Theo somehow connected us to Liesel and the way she was welcomed into her family. That what we share online can connect us with and strengthen people we’ve never met. It’s creepy and amazing.

Since Theo’s birth I have attended many other women in labour. It is my work and I love it. I’ve been to births that were fast, and births that were slow, births with drugs, births without. Births that went to plan and births that did not. Births with mamas screaming at their husbands and births with no husbands at all and I’ve been in awe and humbled each and every time. So what I want to say is that this isn’t a post about how women give birth – it was just my illustrative point.

This post is about sharing. About being open. Particularly online it’s difficult because you are open to criticism. Not everyone will like what you do or share and that’s okay – that’s a part of the package. But on the flip side – I find myself in awe to think that the vulnerability that I felt sharing this intimate experience grew over time into a strength. And isn’t that what vulnerability is after all? A strength. I think about all the people who have shared with me their fear, insecurity or their intimacy. All the women who have shared themselves on this blog, all authors who have written words that made me stronger, musicians who put their heart in music, people who aren’t perfect and don’t pretend to be, crazy cooks that tried that crazy combo for the first time and came up with something delicious, my husband who loves me without reserve of himself – these people and so many more inspire me and give me strength to keep on being open, even when it’s hard.

“There can be no vulnerability without risk; there can be no community without vulnerability; there can be no peace, and ultimately no life, without community.

-M. Scott Peck