fiainros reviewed Midwives by Christopher A. Bohjalian
Review of 'Midwives' on 'Goodreads'
4 stars
I have many thoughts on this book. This book took me less than one day to read. I started it last night and finished it tonight.
To read this book the week I did was particularly ironic. My sister had a baby the previous Saturday. She had her daughter in a hospital, but she had considered homebirths before she risked out due to factors from her pregnancy with twins. I was active in a group called Nebraska Friends of Midwives. Currently, a legislature review process is occurring to allow CNMs to attend homebirths or to license DEMs. In the state of Nebraska in 2006 (one of only 10 states in which this is the case) it is illegal for a midwife to attend a home birth. That week, a subcommittee of the Nebraska Board of Health met. The meeting was quite negative and the overall feeling among the doctors was …
I have many thoughts on this book. This book took me less than one day to read. I started it last night and finished it tonight.
To read this book the week I did was particularly ironic. My sister had a baby the previous Saturday. She had her daughter in a hospital, but she had considered homebirths before she risked out due to factors from her pregnancy with twins. I was active in a group called Nebraska Friends of Midwives. Currently, a legislature review process is occurring to allow CNMs to attend homebirths or to license DEMs. In the state of Nebraska in 2006 (one of only 10 states in which this is the case) it is illegal for a midwife to attend a home birth. That week, a subcommittee of the Nebraska Board of Health met. The meeting was quite negative and the overall feeling among the doctors was "I don't like homebirth." They missed the whole point that women in Nebraska are choosing homebirth and by essentially making it illegal for attendance, the risks involved in homebirth are escalated. I'm still not sure why it is more dangerous in Nebraska than in 40 other states in the good ol' USA. But, this journal is not the place for my diatribe.
Another thing that I realized right away when I started reading this book is that this is not the book I thought my sister recommended to me. A Midwife's Tale is. I saw the made for tv movie based on this novel, Midwives, either when I was pregnant or nursing one of my two children. I recall that birth/death scene vividly, and it was accurate to the story-telling. I don't recall the court scenes at all.
When thinking about things I wanted to say about this novel, it struck me that I liked the circular telling. Then, I realized that another novel I read written by a man but told from a 14 or so year old female's perspective also meandered in this way. Now, I'm wondering if that is how men must write an adolescent female or if it speaks to how well those two authors write that I liked it so much and remember it.
Honestly, I expected a different ending. I thought this would be a tragedy in all aspects. I really loved the closing "chapter."
All the characters were very real to me. This was not a one-dimensional story with one-dimensional characters. My heart ached with Sybil, whom I related much closer to than the narrator.
