The room is deathly quiet aside from a gentle swish of water – beyond it, you can hear a pin drop. I peer into the gloom and make out the woman’s face, eyes closed, and calm. Yet ready to brew. We’re on the precipice, almost there. I go back to my simple knitting, never anything so complicated that I can’t afford to drop a stitch.

In the next minute, there it is: the sound I’m waiting for, a tiny moo from her lips, which makes the hairs on the back of my neck stand to attention. The noise is slight, but inside my head it’s like a clutch of bell ringers clamouring for attention. I put down my knitting and squat by the side of what looks to be an overly large paddling pool.

“It’s coming, it’s coming!” she pants. I nod and say, “Yes, it is. Just trust yourself.” She doesn’t believe then it will ever be over, because no mother ever does.

An hour later, we’re all sipping tea and eating toast, the baby nuzzling into her naked body and having its own first feed, pudgy fingers pawing at her breast like a tiny kitten. I’m sitting opposite, writing up my notes and thinking that, yes, this is the best job in the world.

So was that the first birth I helped at? The one which made my entire being fizzle with excitement, appreciate the unique privilege of being present as new life is lifted into the world? It was actually my last – that feeling has endured over 20 years as a midwife and never failed to amaze me.

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In between, there have been hundreds of births – I’ve lost count of the exact number. I’ve weighed thousands of babies, mopped up bucket loads of tears from exhausted mums, and sat for endless hours waiting for nature to take her course, otherwise known in the business as “sipping tea intelligently”. I’ve laughed and I’ve cried and sometimes wondered why on earth I sacrificed so much of my family life, being constantly on-call and missing out on precious sleep.

Why? Because it’s addictive. It’s like a drug. I became a midwife after the birth of my first son, Harry, now 25. I had what I thought of as a great birth, at my local birth centre, where I later went on to work for 18 years.

On the day he was born, sore and shattered, I nonetheless made a decision. If I could make just one woman feel as exceptional as I had been made to feel, then midwifery was where I wanted to be.

Early on in my career, I knew I was a birth addict, although one who shied away from technology, so that if there was a woman requesting a waterbirth, as natural as possible, I was first to volunteer. I was eternally grateful to have colleagues who embraced the complex cases, but it was never my own comfort zone. After a couple of years working in a larger hospital, I stepped out into the community of the small town where I live in the Cotswolds, in the UK.

I remember driving to my first ever homebirth in the small hours – it was pitch-black and the wind was howling around me – thinking, this is what midwives do! It was a beautiful birth, and afterwards we sat eating crumpets and listening to Cat Stevens. That “baby” has just turned 17, and her mum is now a midwife, too.

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Over the years, I’ve helped women birth in yurts, benders, canal boats and converted buses, even a shed at the bottom of the garden. Along the way, there has been a mountain of paperwork, a few hairy moments (once again, inevitable when you deal with unpredictable humans), and a number of ambulance rides to access the help that some mums and babies need. And yet, it’s never fazed me. It’s fortunate that, alongside mothers, babies are experts at navigating their way into the world; if they hit a rough patch or a kink in the path, they generally tell you with plenty of time to spare.

The most wonderful thing for me is still seeing the local families I’ve watched grow; tall and lanky teenagers whose limbs I once squidged under their mum’s skin. Some families I’ve cared for through four or five babies, and that makes me feel very lucky. These days, just the memory of it all makes the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end.

Mandy Robotham is now a full-time author, writing about birth, death, love and everything else in between. Her latest book, The German Midwife, is published by HarperCollins.

This article appears in Sunday Life magazine within the Sun-Herald and the Sunday Age on sale November 22. To read more from Sunday Life, visit The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age.