I hope everyone watched the first episode of the new season of Call the Midwife last night. It was, of course, excellent. You have no idea what watching a dramatization of out of hospital midwifery life does for me. And all of us crazy women who do this work. Especially in the US where midwives are delivering a tiny fraction of US babies.
As soon as the episode was over, I ran off to a birth. Perfect.
I interviewed the inimitable Penny Simkin on Friday. Gawd, the woman is a wonderhouse. She's 75 and she said she'd have to go til she's 80 because what would she do without the incredible work she's been engaged in for 50 years. Forget retirement.
I did my second interview today, a doula this time. A youngster who recently worked in Africa. Transcription won't kill me this time because we didn't talk for 2 hours. An L & D nurse we delivered has agreed to give me an interview too. Penny told me it took 12 years to write her last book, lordy. I hope I don't take forever.
1 comment:
What an interesting video. I struggled so much with that very issue when I had each of my own children. I do believe I did suffer greatly even though my care-givers were tremendous and loving and I thought I was prepared and I wondered why on earth this suffering was a part of such a normal process. I decided that the pain (and yes, suffering too!) had a very definite purpose in that the very second the baby is born, the pain is gone for the most part and the suffering most definitely is and thus, the baby becomes, in some way, the savior of the mother and this is the very beginning of the insane, great love affair between mother and baby for perhaps it is the same for the child.
That is how I worked it out in my mind, anyway. And I am truly grateful that I was able to feel it all, even the suffering, which as Ms. Simkin pointed out, is part of the whole process.
Now- on to something else- Jessie and Vergil both are going to go hear Ina May and Stephen talk and see the new film on Saturday. I am so excited for Jessie and she is over-the-moon.
Bless all the midwives. Thank-you, Beth, for being part of my life.
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