Midwives

Okay, I am in need of some book suggestions. I just finished reading Midwives over the weekend and now am without a novel to escape into. I have a handful of books piling up in the corner of my bedroom, but I can't seem to get into any of them at the moment. Midwives will be a tough act to follow.

In the tradition of all good thrillers, it ends with a bang. It was a little slow at the beginning for me, but I powered through the first couple of chapters and then couldn't put the darn thing down! The basic premise of the book follows Sibyl Danforth, a seasoned midwife who finds herself in an isolated home in northeastern Vermont. When the labor goes terribly wrong, Sibyl is faced with a harrowing decision to perform dangerous C-Section. Tragedy follows and soon Sibyl finds herself on trial and fighting for her very freedom. It is very absorbing and no matter which side you take, you will feel for all involved. It's definitely a must-read! I also would suggest A Midwife's Story as another page turner if you enjoy this sort of subject matter.

This book also sheds an interesting light on home birth. It discusses the pros and cons of hospital vs. home deliveries in narrative form. No one can argue that hospitals provide a safety net that no home can, but nothing can beat the safe haven we find in the comfort of familiar surroundings. Both offer positives and negatives, so having the choice is a blessing. I'm not really partial to one over the other, however I opted to deliver in a hospital.

My firstborn was breech and a high-risk delivery, so a home birth wouldn't have been an option for us anyway. My son was indeed a special delivery that could have gone horribly wrong in less experienced hands. My doctor was truly a blessing. He was old school and highly competent, willing to try a vaginal birth (albeit in an OR) when most doctors would have insisted upon a C-Section. I was feeling no pain thanks to the epidural, so I was pretty loopy. They needed me that way in case things went awry at the last minute. We also were so new and inexperienced, we were very grateful that we had nurses around to help us figure things out. Our hospital room became a sanctuary that we were afraid to leave.

When our daughter was born, we didn't even think about home birth as an option. I guess it just never occurred to us at the time. Her birth was fast and furious from beginning to end, with little drama outside of crazy labor pains. My contractions began at 7:00ish and walked into the hospital at 6cm within the hour. By the time the drugs kicked in at 9cm, they didn't matter much. My daughter burst headlong into the world and hasn't slowed down since. Her birth was a blur, but every bit as wonderful as our son's. Geography just didn't matter to us.

I look back on so many of my early decisions and wonder how I would do things differently now. I honestly don't know, but I don't regret either path we took with both of our children. They are thriving, beautiful children inside and out and well-loved. I'm not sure that how or where we enter this world has much to do with who we become; I like to think it's where we end up that counts.