Baby Catcher: Chronicles of a Modern Midwife

"She never tired of the miracle. Each time she knelt to "catch" another baby, beloved California mid-wife Peggy Vincent paid homage to the moment when pain bows to joy, one person becomes two, woman turns to goddess, and the world moves aside to make room for one more soul. Trained as a nurse at Duke University in the early 1960s, Vincent begins working in the delivery room of a local hospital in the San Francisco Bay area. Even after establishing an alternative birth center at the hospital, however, she is still frustrated with her lack of autonomy. Too often she witnesses births changing from normal to high risk because of routine obstetrical interventions. Vincent then devotes herself to creating unique birth experiences for her clients and their families. She becomes a licensed midwife, opens her own practice, and delivers nearly three thousand babies during her remarkable career. With every birth comes an unforgettable story. Each time Vincent ""catches"" a wet and wriggling baby, she encounters another memorable woman busy negotiating her unique path through the labyrinth of childbirth. Meet Catherine as she rides out her labor in a car careening down a mountain road, her husband clueless at the wheel. Megan delivers on a leaky sailboat during the storm of the decade. Susannah gives birth so quietly and effortlessly, neither husband nor midwife notice much of anything until they see a baby lying on the bed, and Sofia spends her labor trying to keep her hyper doctor-father from burning down the house. More than just a collection of birth stories, Baby Catcher is a provocative, moving, and highly personal account of the ongoing difficulties midwives face in the United States. With vivid portraits of courage, perseverance, and love, this is a passionate call to rethink today's technological hospital births in favor of a more individualized and profound experience in which mothers and fathers take the stage in the timeless drama of birth and renewal.

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Title of ebook: Baby Catcher: Chronicles of a Modern Midwife
ISBN: 9780743242370
parent-ISBN: 9780743219334
Publisher: Scribner
Pages: 336
Published: 04-2002
Released online for download: 04-16-2002
Author of eBook: Vincent, Peggy

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Baby Catcher

Chapter One: You Have to Lie Down

SEPTEMBER 1962
DUKE UNIVERSITY, DURHAM, NORTH CAROLINA

"Please lie down," I begged Zelda. "Please."

Wearing nothing but a shiny coat of sweat, the young black woman stood upright on her hospital bed, stomping from the lumpy pillow to the foot rail and then back again. For the past fifteen minutes she'd been running laps on top of her bed, towering four feet above me as I raced along the floor with my arms outstretched in the futile hope that I might catch her if she fell.

"It's against the rules to do that," I whined, aware of how prissy and juvenile I sounded, but I was just a student nurse, and I'd be in trouble if I couldn't control this crazy pregnant woman. I tried another line of reasoning. "You might hurt yourself, not to mention your baby." Yeah, that sounded better. But she wasn't buying it.

Moaning, she sped to the head of the bed, tromped on the pillow with her callused feet, and grimaced as another labor pain began. Shaking her head from side to side, she banged on the wall with her thin hands. I watched the line of her vertebrae sway like beach grass in the wind whil ... read full excerpt from: Baby Catcher: Chronicles of a Modern Midwife ebook

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