As I said when I shared in regard to our Christmas traditions last year, Brent and I “wanted to cut sharp against the grain of American culture and tradition, and we were aware that the pursuit of our cross-current ideas would require the forging of a new culture and the crafting of new traditions.” We wanted to keep things[…]
Many thanks to Danica Donnelly for inviting my to share how I feel about birth photography on her blog! It was a joy to write a short story about a thing I cherish so! And I do cherish it so! Yes, I’m a midwife and I get paid real money (well, usually–I’ve been known to[…]
In line with the theme of my upcoming book, I’ve built this website and blog around my service as a midwife among the Amish. But today, with the life and dream of Martin Luther King, Jr on my heart, what I want to talk about with you today is a far cry from Amish Midwifery.[…]
“Don’t pick that up!” “Put that down!” “No, that really IS too heavy for you!” These were the exclamations that filled my ears in the last weeks of my pregnancy as we hurried and scurried to prepare to move as my due date loomed closer and closer! Jesse or Mom would say something akin to[…]
Hannah didn’t give birth the night Megan sent me home with the necklace, and we’re glad she didn’t. She and Jesse were in the process of purchasing a house and we were determined to get her into it before Elyse made her appearance. Hannah and Jesse closed on their home, a lovely little place tucked[…]
The evening I arrived in Michigan, Hannah took me aside into the bathroom. She opened a drawer next to the sink and drew a lovely piece of jewelry into the light. It glinted as it twisted on its chain. It was a Birth Without Fear pendant. She looked from it to me. “Sarah Donahue gave[…]
To tell our birth stories… To tell our birth stories is the attempt to capture in words among the most profound, most powerful of our life experiences… Experiences simultaneously painful… gorgeous… raw… terrifying… triumphant… naked… transformative…. To tell our birth story is to tell of the time we got caught out in the wildest, darkest, most brutal[…]
Well, it’s Friday, October 27th and I’m eight days home from Michigan. My husband, Steven, and my middle bonus son, Adam, are hunting up in the mountains. I’m away in the mountains, too, alone and relishing the quiet. I’m perched beside Fall River with the song of rapids in my ears and clean air in[…]
I yawned and stretched. I’d gone to bed too late the night before – thirsty to soak up every last drop of time I could with my daughter and my granddaughters – but I’d still managed to rise early enough to start out on my twenty-two hour drive at a decent time. My girls were yet asleep,[…]
Elyse Hannah Simmons 7 pounds, 3 ounces and 22.25 inches long Born to Hannah Evangeline and Jesse Simmons and to her sister, Evangeline Heidi. 6:35 Sunday morning, September 24, 2017 Elyse began her journey earthside mere hours after the Simmons family settled themselves into their new home and christened it with the dawning of the[…]