When I am planning to travel I usually find a couple of books for my kindle. I prefer hard copy books most of the time, but when traveling e-books are a great option. I saw the title online, Born for Life: A Midwifes’s Story, and was immediately drawn to…
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Finding an Enduring Loyalty
The Five Minute Friday writing community looks forward to the prompt that Kate Motaung gives each week. We pause to think about the word and then write as ideas begin to flow. This week the prompt is: LOYAL The dictionary offers this, as a definition of loyal: faithful to a…
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Midwife: With Woman
With my third pregnancy I chose a new medical practice. I chose a practice that included an ob-gyn doctor and a certified nurse midwife. Even though my previous births were cesarean sections, followed by complications I wanted the perspective of a midwife in my care. During my prenatal visits I…
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Reflecting on Childbirth Practices: Will We See More Respect for Midwives?
In the introduction to the book, Modern Mothers in the Heartland, a speech by Dr. Caroline Hedger is referenced. In 1920 Dr. Caroline Hedger gave a speech entitled, “The Relation of Health to Progress”. Like reformers of the time she was calling attention to the health of women and children.…
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Joy Restored
Childbirth practices had changed since I began my career as a labor and delivery nurse. The use of pitocin to hasten birth had become common. The rate of cesarean section had risen from 15% to 30%. I saw a full term infant die after inappropriate use of pitocin. I didn’t…
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Different Environments: New Perspectives
I am joining the writing community, Five Minute Friday, today. We write for five minutes (or sometimes a little more). The prompt today is: ADAPT It was a decision I came to after much thought, choosing to work with physicians and midwives that attended home birth. I had worked…
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Call the Midwife: the Spiritual Aspect of Childbirth
It is the 7thseason of Call the Midwife, and I make time to watch it. This weeks episode had me in tears. Death is hard, but I am glad that the current series has reflections on faith. When it first aired I wondered how close it was to the book…
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Talking About Sex
On Thursday evenings I look forward to seeing the prompt that Kate Motaung has chosen for Five Minute Friday. I enjoy linking up with this community of writers and seeing where the word takes us. Today’s prompt is: INTENTIONAL I was born in the 1950s, before the b.c. pill became…
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A Thanksgiving Birthday
This year I cooked the turkey on Wednesday, a day before Thanksgiving. I scooped out the stuffing and put it in a casserole dish. I deboned the meat and placed it in a large baking dish. I put the bones in the freezer, planning to make broth sometime in…
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The Midwife’s Story
A number of years ago I read an article about a Finnish midwife. In 1909 she had been at the center of a court case, determining the legality of midwifery in Massachusetts. She had been arrested a number of times (despite the fact that her statistics for live births were…