For a Laugh!

The last few weeks I’ve flooded your inbox with this and that heartwarming element of my book in attempt to entice you into purchasing your very own copy. Now my husband tells me it’s time for something a little lighter, so I plan now to regale you with I daresay HIS favorite story from the book.

This one’s for you, Steven ♥

A little snippet from

A Midwife in Amish Country
Celebrating God’s Gift of Life

And then there was the Honda Civic Wagon we purchased out in Arizona. It was cute, rust-free, and a lemon. Ron got it to Michigan for us the summer after Emily was born. I fetched it from Mt. Pleasant and it was overheating before I was halfway home. Brent fixed it, and it overheated. He fixed it again, and it overheated again. He fixed it one more time, and it blew a head gasket.

When it blew the head gasket, he purchased another old Honda Civic Wagon from a salvage yard, one with a ruined body but solid engine. He spent the better part of a summer switching out the engines, often using the kids to help him, as his hands were too big to squeeze into all the nooks and crannies and crevices of the foreign-constructed machine. At last, he had the thing up and running again and then I nearly ruined it. It actually happened the Saturday I went to the family doctor for my referral to the specialist. Luanne was staying with us at the time. I described the incident in my journal.

I left the doctor’s office to drive home. Now, Brent usually leaves the key in the ignition all the time and I had a feeling I ought to leave it in when I pulled into the doctor’s that morning, but then I thought, “Don’t be foolish,” and I removed it.

I noticed it came out in something of an odd way and, when I opened the door, a buzzer sounded. I checked the lights, then checked everything else I could think to check, paused, shrugged, shut the door, and went inside.

When I got back out to the car, I couldn’t get the key in all the way. I turned it over and tried again. I fiddled with it, jiggled it, coaxed it, sat flummoxed a few minutes, tried to start it though the key would only go part way in, and—bingo—it started! I drove home without another thought until I tried to shut the car off.

Yes. So. I tried to shut the car off. I pushed, I pulled, I wiggled, I pleaded—all to no avail. Then the key came out, but the car stayed on. I ran inside and called Brent at work. He told me to keep an eye on the heat gauge and hung up. I went back out to look at the gauge and noticed it was getting hot. Assuming Brent was on his way, I hoped he was hurrying. I went back inside and, not too long after I got in there, began to hear a hissing noise. I looked out the window and saw clouds of steam billowing up from under the hood!

I called Brent again, in a panic. You know, I think this was the first time in my life I’d ever really panicked. I mean, I was freaked out! I didn’t know what would happen! Would the car explode? Would it shatter the living room windows? I made the kids run down to the bedroom and, learning Brent was not on the way home due to making an arrest, I tried hard to do everything he told me to do while every nerve in my body screamed, “DANGER! GET AWAY!!”

But I went out, popped the hood, propped it up, then danced about it in fright as Brent tried to explain how to disconnect the spark plugs and distributor cap. What Brent said was unclear to me. I could hardly see anything he was describing. All I could see was this heaving, shuddering, boiling, hissing, belching cauldron of imminent death by fire and shrapnel. Brent said he was on his way and hung up. Luanne came out with me and was excited but calm as she bent over and looked into the engine—from the dangerous side—and tried to get me to tell her what Brent had said to do. But I couldn’t let her touch it! Oh, my heart was breaking over all Brent’s hard work on that blasted engine! I desperately wanted to reach in and yank at the cords he’d tried to describe!

Then something popped, and the horrible noises surged and swelled, and Luanne and I ran like a couple of jack rabbits into the house and down the hall where we crouched with the kids in the corner of their bedroom, waiting in dread for an explosion. After a moment or two without an explosion, my heart forced me back into the garage. Then my brains chased me back into the kitchen. I plunged my shaking hands into my yellow rubber gloves and dashed again to the churning, blowing, menace, hopped about like a maniac, then skittered back indoors. I hovered behind the kitchen door, flapping and fluttering and begging God to help me, berating myself and bewailing my cowardice.

At that moment, Brent roared into the driveway in his patrol car, leapt from it, dashed to the Honda, fearlessly leaned over the convulsing, sputtering thing, and with one deft motion of his hand within its fulminating depths, did something, and all went silent but the sorrowful, dying sigh of the radiator.

Brent straightened, looking grim. I stood trembling with both anguish and relief, my gloved hands clutched at my throat. Without a word, he turned and returned to work. I released Luanne and the kids from the bedroom and went and slept like the dead for two hours.

Click here to order YOUR copy of A Midwife in Amish Country today on Amazon!
Also available at Barnes and Nobles—online and in stores!

Endorsed by

Stasi Eldredge, NYT best-selling author of Captivating

Dr. Sara Wickham, author, midwifery lecturer and consultant, www.sarawickham.com

Jolina Petersheim, bestselling author of The Midwife

Leslie Gould, #1 best-selling and Christy-award winning author of over twenty books, including The Amish Midwife 

Rahima Baldwin Dancy, author of Special Delivery, childbirth activist, and midwife (retired)

Marie Monville, author of One Light Still Shines

Cindy Lambert, coauthor of One Light Still Shines

Elizabeth Davis, CPM, Co-Director of National Midwifery Institute, Inc., elizabethdavis.com, author of Heart & Hands: A Midwife’s Guide to Pregnancy and Birth and the international bestseller, Orgasmic Birth: Your Guide to a Safe, Satisfying, and Pleasurable Birth Experience

Serena B. Miller, award-winning author of More Than Happy: The Wisdom of Amish Parenting, serenabmiller.com

Eleanor Bertin, Lifelines and Pall of Silence

Sara Daigle, author of Women of Purpose and Dare to Love Your Husband Well

Beth Learn, founder of Fit2b.com

……………..

Kim Woodard Osterholzer, Colorado Springs Homebirth Midwife and Author

Books by Kim:

Homebirth: Safe & Sacred

Homebirth: Commonly Asked Questions

A Midwife in Amish Country: Celebrating God’s Gift of Life

Nourish + Thrive: Happy, Healthy Childbearing

One Little Life at a Time: Recommendations + Record Keeping for Aspiring Homebirth Midwives