Notes

Q1: How did Mother/father/me get changed while mother became a midwife?

Midwifing changed my mother. She was a grown woman with seven children, but this was the first time in her life that she was, without question or caveat, the one in charge. Sometimes, in the days after a birth, I detected in her something of Judy’s heavy presence, in a forceful turn of her head, or the imperious arch of an eyebrow. She stopped wearing makeup, then she stopped apologizing for not wearing it.

• At the beginning, very exhausted
• acted as an assistant
• acted as a midwife herself
• income/money to afford the telephone
• not so boring, help people
• cheaper but illegal
• only in charge
• Offered such a job under such circumstances, accept or not?
• age: 30 or 40 year-old?
• 7 children, baby
• Her father really force her mother to work
• As long as we have income, then nobody can force us
• hesitated to make a change
• Every child is different
• stable
• She worked a housewife
• Why did she married such a kind of guy?
• 妇产科 （Obstetrics and Gynecology） vs . Midwife
• Harvard Positive Psychology
• survivalist

Dad stood there for several seconds, his mouth open. Of course a midwife needs a phone, he said. Then he went back to the junkyard and that’s all that was ever said about it. We hadn’t had a telephone for as long as I could remember, but the next day there it was, resting in a lime-green cradle, its glossy finish looking out of place next to the murky jars of cohosh and skullcap.

She barked orders and we moved wordlessly to follow them. The baby was born without complications. It was mythic and romantic, being an intimate witness to this turn in life’s cycle, but Mother had been right, I didn’t like it. It was long and exhausting, and smelled of groin sweat.

Q2: How can we learn from the midwife story to make a change in our life?

• Money is the most important thing.
• If you earn above an amount, doesn’t make a different. (Survey)
• How to spend the money? For eating or helping others

The next time the midwife came she brought her daughter Maria, who stood next to her mother, imitating her movements, with a baby wedged against her wiry nine-year-old frame. I stared hopefully at her. I hadn’t met many other girls like me, who didn’t go to school. I edged closer, trying to draw her attention, but she was wholly absorbed in listening to her mother, who was explaining how cramp bark and motherwort should be administered to treat post-birth contractions. Maria’s head bobbed in agreement; her eyes never left her mother’s face.

THERE WERE NO HERBALISTS in Wyoming as good as Mother, so a few months after the incident at the hospital, Judy came to Buck’s Peak to restock. The two women chatted in the kitchen, Judy perched on a barstool, Mother leaning across the counter, her head resting lazily in her hand. I took the list of herbs to the storeroom. Maria, lugging a different baby, followed. I pulled dried leaves and clouded liquids from the shelves, all the while gushing about Mother’s exploits, finishing with the confrontation in the hospital. Maria had her own stories about dodging Feds, but when she began to tell one I interrupted her.

“Judy is a fine midwife,” I said, my chest rising. “But when it comes to doctors and cops, nobody plays stupid like my mother.”

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Updated: 5 May, 2021
Created: 5 May, 2021