My first week in Michigan this summer I was blessed with the privilege of attending three births with my daughter, Hannah! The first of those births I also attended with Sarah Donahue, a client, a friend, and now, thanks to my son’s recent wedding, family. I had to include both photographs here since we couldn’t get the babies[…]
This article is from my book, Nourish & Thrive: Happy, Healthy Childbearing. I love witnessing the little ones emerge and unfurl into the light as their fathomless eyes wink and peek beneath their downy brows. But I really think what I love best of all is when all of this transpires under and into the[…]
I threaded my car slowly along the familiar roads – Truckenmiller, Rambadt, Bucknell, Wasepi, Lepley – winding past one farm after another, many laden with a decade’s worth of memories, some even with two. Showers of bright leaves drifted through the shafts of sunlight that penetrated the craggy limbs hemming in the sky like giant golden snowflakes, swirling in eddies stirred[…]
The primary tool I reach for in my Mary Poppins magical midwifery bag is the supremely simple one – the almost too simple one – of smart lifestyle choices. Good health is necessary for birthing safely at home. Good health is necessary to our pursuit of a meaningful life, too! This post is about the[…]
Today I’ll tell the story of birth after cesarean from another perspective. I was hired by a young Amish family in the summertime of 2006 to serve as midwife for their third baby, their second vaginal birth after cesarean. Like Ingrid, Rachel had attempted to birth her first baby at home with another local midwife,[…]
A nine pound, twelve ounce baby boy with a fifteen inch noggin was born vaginally at home through the afternoon of a warm summer’s day after the baby’s brother, a boy who tipped the scales at nine pounds even, was born by cesarean in the hospital some three years earlier. This was my first primary[…]
Once upon a time, an enchanting little sprite with golden curls and bright blue eyes appeared upon the scene, the second of what would wind up a passel of six golden-haired, blue-eyed sprites. Her name isn’t Tinker Bell, but, minus the mean streak, she always makes me think of Tinker Bell when I think of[…]
I thought I’d flesh out the story that was published on Katie Reid’s blog last week called Fear and Doorknobs. Maybe you read it! I introduced it here on my blog with the title Peace and Grace and a little teaser piece. The theme of the blog post series is listening to the Voice of[…]
Good morning, Friends! I’m excited to tell you that my friend, Katie Reid, has honored me with an invitation to share about a time I felt God speak to me for an episode of her Listen Close, Listen Well: Lean in, My Daughters series of blog posts. I’ve been blessed many times through my life to[…]
So, here’s the story of Rose and Ned’s first homebirth. Rose and Ned are the mother and dad of Absalom, the baby I wrote about last week. Eleven years ago, Rose gave birth to her first son, Davin, through the wee hours of early March. I met Rose five months before in her sister-in-law’s back[…]