With the new year, new degree, new job, and new office I stormed headstrong into 1998! Tara and I started to get a good rhythm in the office, and I started to get my footing with the busy-ness of Dr. Miller’s Jeffersonville office. I enjoyed the learning opportunities and comradery I found with Dr. Miller. He encouraged me to trust my instincts and rely on the knowledge I had already acquired, while at the same time was more than willing to lend a hand, review a history, or look at a case I had not seen before and offer his wisdom and guidance to help build my knowledge base. I was now sharing call time with him, laboring and delivering his patients 2 days a week, while he maintained call for any surgical needs. I was building up some clients of my own, and for those ladies I was on call 24/7. My schedule was still heavy, not so much in the office, but at the hospital. I still felt the need to “protect” my patients. And to do that I had to be there with them while they labored. I spent my time educating the nurses about natural birth, bringing in articles and studies, showing them different postions for women to labor in and ways of managing patients. I remembered the way some of them talked about Dr. Fleming, and her “different” way of managing her patients, and I didn’t want them to think of me as a rebel, but wasn’t I? Wasn’t I challenging their comfort level with the current protocols? Wasn’t I asking things of them that the physicians didn’t? Didn’t I owe it to my patients to offer them other options? Didn’t I owe it to myself to practice as a midwife, and not a physician extender? So I stayed with my patients, I coached them through their labors, I walked with them, and helped them to the bathroom. I protected them.

And all of that work paid off. My numbers grew because my patients had great birth experiences. They went home and told their family and friends, and my appointment calendar filled. Not just in the Corydon office, the schedule in Jeffersonville became more and more my own patients, and fewer of Dr. Miller’s patients. The ladies I helped with birth came back to see me for annual exams and gyn problems. The nurses started to support my methods more, not all, but a good portion of them. They saw my passion for helping women, and started incorporating more of my methods into their care of the physicians patients. Women started walking during labor, epidurals were not being pushed on them as quickly. With epidurals, more frequent position changes were being done to fascilitate the rotation of the baby and increase the chance of vaginal birth. Some battles weren’t so easily won, every woman was required to have an IV, food was not allowed while in labor, visitors were restricted, but slowly changes were being made to the betterment of women.

Tara’s pregnancy had started off pretty rocky. Excessive nausea, vomiting and fatigue plagued her. Most of the symptoms subsided before she began her job at the office, but the fatigue continued on. Working together seemed to help our relationship. Perhaps it was her realization that motherhood brings with it responsibilities for another human, or perhaps it was the recognition of the work that I do, and my passion for helping women. She started recommending my practice to her friends. And they to their friends, and so on. The patients would ask her about her pregnancy, and showed a genuine interest in the outcome. She seemed to glow with the pregnancy and the feeling of accomplishment she got from the job. She was due to deliver in May, right around Derby Day.

On April 9th I had a full schedule in the Jeffersonville office. After my morning schedule was completed I went to the hospital to check on my patients on postpartum, grabbed some lunch, then returned for my afternoon schedule. About midway through the afternoon I received a call from Tara. “My water just broke,” she shouted! “Are you sure, you’re only 36 weeks, was there a lot or just a drop, was it clear,” the questions poured out? “What about contractions, are you having any,” I asked? Our conversation confirmed for me that her water was most likely broken, she wasn’t having any contractions, and she was at home without a car. It was decided that I would finish my afternoon appointments, and then evaluate her progress when I got home.

By the time I reached home, she was contracting regularly. After finding her to be 4cm, her water broken, and finding the baby’s heartbeat to be stable with the doppler I had borrowed from the office, I quickly prepared dinner for everyone, and we headed back to the hospital. She had decided that she wanted to avoid an epidural if possible, so I had done some childbirth education classes with her myself to prepare her for the birth. Let me just say that birthing your own grandchild may be “a very granola thing to do,” as Dr. Miller said, but one of the most nerve wracking things I’ve ever done. I had another patient in labor at the same time, so I divided my time between Tara and my other patient. When Tara reached transition, my other patient was pushing, so I needed to work with her until she delivered. Meanwhile the nurse would come in periodically to assess how much longer I might be, because Tara wanted me. Priorities. It was excruciating for me! The delivery completed, I returned to Tara who was starting to feel the urge to push. It was not an easy birth for her, or for me. Words of encouragement that came so easy for me with my patients, seemed insufficient when my child looked at me and said, “mommy, it hurts so bad.” My heart ached to make this easier for her, but my mind told me that she could do this, and she would with my encouragment. So I became the midwife, and told her all of the things I would tell any woman in this stage of labor, and she did it. I caught my “special baby,” Tyler Allen. He was 1 of the 227 babies I delivered in 1998.

During the same year, my brother, Nathan, and his wife, Antonia, were expecting their second child. Nathan and Toni met when they were in the Army, and while Toni had finished her committment to the Army, Nathan had remained active duty. They had remained at Ft. Knox, KY since just prior to the birth of their first child, Alex, and Toni had made the committment to receive her care from me at my Corydon office, a 45 minute drive from her home. I received a call from Toni one morning while at the office, and she described early labor symptoms. She was at home alone because Nathan was out of town for work, so I encouraged her to come to the office for an exam. She came and spent the day with Tara and I at the office, we had lunch, and then as the labor progressed we notified Nathan of the plan, and we headed to the hospital. Another of Tara’s friends had called, she too was in labor, and I instructed her to meet me there as well. Toni’s labored progressed quickly, but she had some work to do pushing that baby out. I’ll never forget her words as I caught Emmanuel, and held him up for her to see, “Oooh, he’s ugly.” I think most babies are at birth, most resemble wrinkly old men, but momma’s don’t usually comment on that. We had a big chuckle over that, and Emmanual grew into a fine looking young man.

Karissa’s labor went through the night, so I napped on and off in the doctors lounge, intemittantly checking on her and on Toni and Emmanuel. The next morning Karissa’s labor became more active, and she gave birth to her first child, a son. But I had no sooner caught her baby, than another of Tara’s friends called to tell me that her water had broken while in line at the Sears store. She made her way to the hospital, where I confirmed that it had indeed broken, and she was actively laboring. Later that day I would catch Jacob, Donna’s first child. It was a crazy weekend. Nineteen ninety eight finished out with 227 births for me, renewal of my contract with Dr. Miller, a salary increase, and the satisfaction that midwifery had taken hold in this community. And one tired midwife!