While my wife was pacing the basement floor experiencing the first throes of labor, I spoke with our midwife to pass the time. “So what are the different kinds of people who do home births?” I asked.

People on the “margins,” she said, those who question mainstream society: Amish, hippies, farmers, certain groups of Christians; in the nineties, some people in the urban “grunge” movement.

She said that farm families are more comfortable with home birth because they see birth all the time in their animals. I said that it was interesting that the Amish would work with outside midwives; you’d think that they would have a midwifery tradition of their own. She commented that sometimes Amish birthing rooms actually have electricity available. Later my wife and I remembered that one of our midwives in California had worked with Midwestern Amish groups earlier in her career.

I suppose my wife and I fit into the category of those who question authority - in this case the nearly total authority that the medical profession claims over our bodies when we submit to its system of care.

This entry was posted on Monday, December 31st, 2007 at 2:45 pm and is filed under Autobiography.