"Hospitals are Put Off by Waves:" The Complexity of Feminine and Feminist Interests in the Childbirth Education Association of Erie, Pennsylvania
My mother delivered me in 1977 at an Erie, Pennsylvania hospital. It was her first pregnancy and she was looking forward to the childbirth experience, so in order to prepare herself, she read everything she could and attended Childbirth Education classes with my father. Unfortunately, she was not prepared for hospital experience. Her doctor chastised her denial of pain medications but he respected her wishes even as he administered pitocin and attached an internal and external fetal monitor, preventing her from walking around. (more)

Mikveh
In and out I rose above the water, my mouth gulping air, and then immersed myself again, my body suspended in the water's embrace. I felt held between worlds, like a child playing in the waters of a square womb. Our life begins in water, our first world where we float in the currents of birth and growth. I was a woman and a child at once, going in and out of the waters of birth. (more)

2001 Narrative Articles