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by Jane Beal, PhD, CCE (BWI) When the waters were rising from January rains, and the California hills were all green,   when the white-woolly sheep were wandering in pastures and chewing the grass at their feet,   then the Victorious One went walking across the expanse of her fruitful olive farm,   carrying twin babies in a belly grown as round as the white moon when she is full.   She felt the little ones begin their journey in the morning, her muscles tightening like they had with the first   eight years before, with her baby girl, who was now playing in the trees, hiding and waiting,   for the new ones to come from the womb into the world and change everything.   Victoria made her way to her home, a place perfectly prepared and decorated in pink,   the prelude to wishes come true, and within a few short hours, Suri was born   slipping gently into her father’s strong hands, while her brother Noah waited inside,   wondering where his sister had gone, until the midwives arrived   and then down he came, like he was invited, a little blue and folded forward, but   he cried out and filled his lungs with air, for the breath of life had gone into him.   When the placenta came, dark red and lovely, fused on the maternal side, it showed how delicately   his life was connected to his life-house, for his cord was only loosely connected to flesh,   but the strings did not tear, and he made his transition from the water to the air in miraculous safety.   Then brother and sister lay closely together, comforted in the presence of one another,   and their father and mother watched over them, and their midwives praised God for their lives.     For everyone who has been born of God overcomes         the world. And this is the VICTORY  that has overcome the world:  our faith.    ~ 1 John 5:4   Jane Beal, PhD is a childbirth educator, doula, and midwife. She has served with homebirth practices in the greater Chicago, Denver, and San Francisco metropolitan areas and in birth centers in the U.S., Uganda, and the Philippine Islands. Since 2012, she has been a contributing writer for Midwifery Today. She also is the author of Epiphany: Birth Poems and Transfiguration: A Midwife’s Birth Poems. She currently serves as the Director of Education for BirthWorks International and teaches at the University of La Verne in southern California. To learn more, please visit sanctuarypoet.net, christiandoula.net and christianmidwife.wordpress.com.