“Where ever and however you give birth, your experience will impact your emotions and your spirit for the rest of your life.” (Ina May Gaskin) At my first midwife appointment for my seventh child, I laughed at the very suggestion that my baby would be born on my birthday. My due date was June 20 and my birthday was June 22. None of my babies made it to their due dates.  Being adopted made the concept of my Birthday something that forced me to remember that my birth mother did not keep me. I think that was why I avoided the due date for this pregnancy and told myself that my baby was actually due around June 15. It was not until twenty weeks that my pregnancy began to feel strange. I would try to sleep on my left side and around 3 AM panic would hit me. Some Braxton Hicks contractions forced my eyes open. My body would freeze on its side with my legs crossed as if that would stop a baby from …

I was sitting in my living room with my husband Tim, and both of his parents Mark and Lynne watching Jim Gaffigan tell his joke called Four Kids. A section of the joke stood out to me. When he talked about the male contribution to babies he said, “I helped too for like five seconds doing the one thing I think about twenty-four hours a day.” Mark and Tim chuckled. My husband Tim and his parents all looked clearly related. When I met Tim’s mother Lynne, I was picking her up from the airport and driving her to a class she was taking. We had never met. She and I planned the entire thing over the internet. How will I know who you are? I look a lot like Timothy, but I have strawberry blonde shoulder length hair. I could not imagine picking out a woman from a crowd by a few familiar facial features. I am not sure why I had not made a sign with her name on it like limo drivers, but …

My midwife Carol had long white hair with black streaks. She wore dangling earrings with glittery stones and a toe ring. Appointments were held at her house, where walking down the driveway was a therapeutic experience. Her husband had created an amazing garden and filled it with everything that could possibly grow in the Pacific Northwest. The apple trees had branches that looked like twisted umbrella wires. The largest kale plants that I had ever seen were growing in a tidy row next to zucchinis. The front door opened directly into her kitchen, where there were often fresh eggs for sale on her maple kitchen table. My family made its way to the living room at the back of the house. It felt like an old-fashioned parlor. Often, appointments could be held in this room because there would be plenty of space for children to play, but she also had a small office with an examining table. My first appointment was a strange experience. I felt out of place sitting on a piece of furniture …

One night as I spoke with Tim, my fiancé, over the phone, I sat at my maple desk with a pen in my hand.  I scribbled on a piece of notebook paper and my new doddle of flowers and vines bleed into notes for a twentieth-century novel. ​Tim asked, “Want to go on a walk?” ​I was silent because I was reliving a conversation that I had with my friends on a drive home from our study group. One girl said that she couldn’t wait to see my cafe au lait babies.  Another friend asked if I planned to have babies right away. I wanted kids and I knew that Tim wanted them, but he did not know that I could not compromise on certain things.  I asked Tim, “Do you want kids right away?” ​“I just figured you would take care of that,” he said. Tim had planned out every aspect of his life from courting me to homeschooling his future kids. He was not the type to let such an important detail out …