A couple months ago I was invited to coffee with one of our city’s birth photographers, Jackie Parr-Akiona. As we visited – and it was such a lovely visit, as Jackie is a pure joy – she birthed the idea of a film interview explaining a bit about homebirth. Initially, she wanted to interview me,[…]
Through my last post in this series we walked together through Emma’s long and difficult labor, and rejoiced with her over the birth of her sweet baby boy. Today I invite you to join me as we faced the trouble that followed him and wiled away the hours of the child’s first night on earth[…]
I shared this post on Facebook today to inform, to thank, and to invite. If you’ve come here from Facebook then you know already that I’m yet in the thick of attempting to attract the interest of a publisher for my memoir – the book I wrote describing my time as a homebirth midwifery apprentice[…]
Through my last post in this series I drew you into the nighttime life of a midwife as Emma’s labor began. Join me today and witness the miracle of two becoming three. “Emma? May I come in?” I’d arrived at the cozy, aging farmhouse – a quaint combination of trim and ramshackle, oozing with love and joy,[…]
Mama called around three in the morning to tell me she was having short, frequent contractions – contractions surely too short to be accomplishing much. I encouraged her to drink a tall glass of water and hop into an epsom salt bath, and see if they wouldn’t either lengthen or fade away. An hour later, Daddy[…]
Through my last post in this series describing my time among the Amish, I revealed one of the ways I struggled with my calling. Join me this week as Emma’s labor begins. And so Emma’s pregnancy matured as winter gave way to springtime. Icy roadways turned muddy, hints of green began to peek past patches[…]
Through my last post in this series about my birthwork among the Amish, Midwife Life, Part Four: Secrets, I showed you what a prenatal visit looks like. Today I’ll show you what it was like to be a real-live human with my own special set of frailties and flaws and foibles that had to be overcome in order to[…]
“A picture is worth a thousand words.” And so it is. Between my book and this blog, I’ve spent the last two years writing and writing and writing furiously with a desire to bring you with me into the beautiful and bewitching world of birth at home. If only you could see… But today you can![…]
Meet my friend, Patrice Bobier, CPM, veteran homebirth midwife of Northern Michigan. Patrice has attended the births of more than 1,600 babies in just a little less than forty-years! Though Patrice herself may not remember it, I first met her at a Michigan Midwives Association Conference twenty-eight years ago when I was eighteen years old. Fourteen[…]
It’s with a flood of joy that I introduce you to Sarah and Matt Donahue and their birth stories today! Our lives came together eight years ago across 800 miles of telephone wire, then morphed from professional to personal like the dancing hues of a kaleidoscope caught within a beam of sunlight. Hannah and I attended the[…]