" To know the way ahead, ask those coming back." Chinese proverb

"Attending births is like growing roses You have to marvel at the ones that just open up and bloom at the first kiss of the sun but you wouldn't dream of pulling open the petals of the tightly closed buds and forcing them to blossom to your time line." Gloria Lemay

"The best way to avoid a cesarean is to stay out of the hospital." Brooke Sanders Purves

"Just as a woman's heart knows how and when to pump, her lungs to inhale, and her hand to pull back from fire, so she knows when and how to give birth." Virginia Di Orio

"If you lay down, the baby will never come out." Native American saying

"We've put birth in the same category with illness and disease and it's never belonged there. Birth is naturally safe, but we've allowed it to be taken over by the medical community." Carla Hartley, founder of Trust Birth and the Ancient Art Midwifery Institute