A midwife's unassisted birth

I just came across this midwife's UC story--what a powerful, determined mama! She faced a rare but very serious emergency situation during the birth, a shoulder dystocia. Here is an excerpt from her story, right after she discovered the shoulder dystocia.

There are moments in life when adversity stares you in the face like a hangman daring you to overcome, all the while taunting and mocking your own inadequacies. For a fraction of an instant I felt crippling despair for that which there was no solution for. There was no one to help me or tell me what to do. There was no answer to the question "How"? I was going to lose my child and be condemned with guilt. I would fail to do the one thing my body was built best to do, right in front of my daughters and husband.

My husband broke through my paralyzing haze in the next instant by calling time (how much time had passed since the head had crowned). Reality struck me hard in the face as a contraction built up. I concentrated with all of my might and commanded myself to do this impossible thing. This was my birth, my baby and my body and I would make this happen RIGHT NOWWW!!!

I became instinctual. I opened my legs as wide as I could and braced my feet into the mattress. Then I reached over and behind my head and gripped the back board of the bed. Pulling on the back board, I hoisted my butt up off the bed, arched my back, rotated my hips in the air and pushed with all of the power any one woman can command from heaven and earth. I caught another breath, kept the movement of elevated hip rotation constant with the pressure of bearing down. I was not going to lose this child without a fight. The pain that always invaded my births dulled as I lost my temper and roared loudly through the pushes that brought to birth my child. Finally, I literally felt the release of her shoulder pressure from under my pubic bone as my child gushed forth into freedom.