Author Archives: The Midwife

The Great Wall of Vagina

By The Midwife | Published: June 27, 2012

Wow, I stumbled upon the work of UK artist Jamie McCartney, and was pretty much blown away.  You have to visit his site ASAP: The Great Wall of Vagina.  The 9 metre long polyptych consists of four hundred plaster casts of vulvas, all of them unique, arranged into ten large panels. McCartney set out to make […]

Posted in Birth Art, Feminism, Good Enough to Share, Sex and Sexuality | 2 Comments

NRP with Karen Strange

By The Midwife | Published: June 6, 2012

I took the most amazing NRP class today (NRP stands for Neonatal Resuscitation Provider, for those who aren’t hip to all of the gazillion acronyms in this crazy profession) with Karen Strange of newbornbreath.com, and I am so buzzed from the class that I have to sit down and write about it tonight before I forget […]

Posted in Academia, Complications, Education, Homebirth, Labor and Birth, Miscellaneous | 5 Comments

Grace’s Birth

By The Midwife | Published: May 27, 2012

Another birth story from my totally fantastic Due Date Club, this one written by Kristy.  I’ve got plenty more stories to come, but I’m trying to ration them a bit, birth story junkies that we all are.  So enjoy this lovely hospital birth with a very supportive team that did a great job of respecting […]

Posted in Breastfeeding, Hospitals, Labor and Birth, Vaginal Birth | 2 Comments

Ashley Sophia’s birth story

By The Midwife | Published: May 13, 2012

Happy Mother’s Day!  Here’s another fantastic birth story from Kim, a mother in my due date club, this one a successful VBAC with a hospital team that was very respectful of her birth plan.  Isn’t it wonderful when that happens?  Enjoy! ___________________________________________________________________________________________________________ On August 20th, 2010, two little pink lines appeared on a pregnancy test […]

Posted in Birth Stories, Good Enough to Share, Hospitals, Labor and Birth, VBAC | 2 Comments

A man’s take on breastfeeding

By The Midwife | Published: May 12, 2012

This story has been making the rounds, but here’s a really fantastic post on the (Wo)Men Speak Out Blog about a man’s reaction to his wife’s breastfeeding, and his eventual evolution as a man because of it.  Yes, breasts can be sexual, but they’re also incredibly functional.  He wonders if it’s our discomfort with the […]

Posted in Breastfeeding, Mothering, Politics | Leave a comment

Levi’s birth story

By The Midwife | Published: May 11, 2012

May has arrived again, it’s officially Spring, and I have lots of birth stories to share with all of you!  Most of these are contributions from women who were part of my Due Date Club last year when I was pregnant.  I wrote a little bit about this extraordinary  group of women in the preface […]

Posted in Birth Stories, Good Enough to Share, Homebirth | Leave a comment

Holy Work

By The Midwife | Published: March 18, 2012

I’ve been reading a lot of birth poetry lately.  For reasons which I can’t quite yet delve into in this moment (still keeping things on the down-low, if you know what I mean), I’ve been revisiting my calling to midwifery, and finding that it is still singing it’s siren song, as strong as ever as […]

Posted in Birth Art, Good Enough to Share, Labor and Birth, Myth, Folklore and Ritual | Leave a comment

The history of Planned Parenthood

By The Midwife | Published: February 11, 2012

This is a few weeks old, but it’s absolutely fascinating: Jill Lapore’s article Birthright: What’s next for Planned Parenthood in the New Yorker chronicling the history of  Planned Parenthood and the birth control movement, and how that movement became politicized, and then later violently attacked, and now so deeply partisan and entrenched in the public consciousness that […]

Posted in Choice, Contraception, Feminism, Politics, Women's Health | 1 Comment

Ina May in the Sun

By The Midwife | Published: January 6, 2012

The Sun Magazine has a fantastic article in their current issue (Jan. 2012) interviewing Ina May, who’s recently come out with a new book Birth Matters: A Midwife’s Manifesta, about the medicalization of birth.   While the online version of the article is truncated, it’s still a fascinating read, complete with the history of how and […]

Posted in Homebirth, Labor and Birth, Midwifery, Vaginal Birth | Leave a comment

The 10 Commandments of Getting Pregnant

By The Midwife | Published: December 16, 2011

This was shared with me, I felt compelled to share it all with you.  Totally cracked me up, but SO TRUE!!!! Getting Pregnant with LumaLoveGettingPregnant.com

Posted in Fertility and Conception, Pregnancy | Leave a comment