Customer Reviews

The Blue Cotton Gown: A Midwife's Memoir

5 star:		(31)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

The stories of Patsy Harmon's Blue Cotton Gown are the stories of everyone who has ever closed the door of an exam room. Yet Harmon imbues the stories with a humor, pathos and insight that make this telling unique in the writings about women's health. We end up caring what happens to Nila, Kasmar and Aran as they come in and out of Patsy's exam room and our compassion is aroused by Patsy's compassion.

Yet Patsy has the ability to put a knife in your gut, to make you long for things you have experienced and things you have not. She takes you to her green fields and lets you play among the stars, but she is also merciless when looking at her own complex relationships and her practice challenges. The only thing missing in the drama of her day to day life in Appalachia is the revenue agent charging out from behind the hills to discover that she and her husband, who is also her practice partner, have an illegal still in their office.

Practice is not easy, relationships are not easy, being a driven and compassionate mother and woman are not easy, and Patsy makes that painfully clear. You come to cheer on her thoughts of running away from it all and returning to a simpler time. If anyone who practices modern day healthcare does not share this fantasy, then they are not present to the challenges of today's practice. Patsy, more than any other writer in this time, has the skill to take us into a world where tragedy, joy and tedium mix every time the exam door closes behind another woman.
Penny Armstrong, CNM, MSN

I think this is the bravest book I have ever read. It took me captive from the first paragraph:

I have insomnia...and I drink a little. I might as well tell you. In the middle of the night, I drink scotch when I can't sleep. Actually, I can't sleep most nights; actually, every night. Even before I stopped delivering babies, I wanted to write about the women.

And held me captive with this:

...in the stillest part of the deep night, I sit down to write. I need to sleep...but I need to tell the stories. The stories need to be told because they are from the hearts of women; the tender, angry hearts; the broken, beautiful hearts of women.

The women. The women who bring their bodies and their souls into Harman's examining room. Who tell her their stories, which she captures for us with a rare compelling clarity and honesty. And not just their stories, but her own, as well--the story of a nurse-midwife, half of a wife-husband medical team, who is struggling to keep a small family practice afloat in the face of IRS threats, uterine cancer, a gangrenous gall bladder, and problems in her thirty-year marriage.

The Blue Cotton Gown is a compilation: a memoir of a year in the author's life, its passages interspersed with the stories of the women who visit her practice, as well as the story of the practice itself. Every part of this memoir is about women's bodies, since that is Harman's profession and her calling. There is Heather, an unmarried teenager pregnant with twins. Nila, who has already delivered seven babies and is cheerfully expecting her eighth. Holly, whose daughter is anorexic, and Trish, whose daughter kills herself with an accidental overdose. Reba, who needs instruction in finding physical pleasure ("Sometimes I wonder where I get the balls to talk to women like that...Sometimes I crack myself up"). And there's Kasmar, who is transitioning from being a woman to being a man, and needs a little help. We all need a little help, Harman says. "We are all here for one another...gifts to one another...We are all here for one another and that is enough."

And in Harman's practice, which is all about women's bodies, being here is enough, most of the time. The Blue Cotton Gown is about women's stories, each different yet all held together by common elements, each told with sympathy and loving attention that bears witness to the inevitable pain, the loss, the fear that comes with being human, whether we are the nurtured or the nurturer. "The patients, me included, are all the same under these blue cotton gowns," Harman thinks, disrobing before the surgery that will remove her cancerous uterus. "Naked and scared."

Yes, naked and scared. This is not an easy book to read, in part because it is so utterly unformulaic. I could not predict how any of the stories were going to turn out. Would Caroline's baby die, nearly strangled by an umbilical noose? Would Kasmar's transgendering bring happiness, would Nila make it through another pregnancy, would Holly's daughter start to eat again? Would Harman's practice--and Harman's marriage--survive or go under? Every story held me with its urgency, but the stories were sometimes so honest, so ruthlessly real, that I had to put the book down and look away--and then come back, when I could breathe again. This doesn't happen to me often as a reader. When it does, I know I've found a treasure.

"Some women are born to be midwives," Harman says, and some women are born to midwife the stories of others. Patsy Harman is both. Read The Blue Cotton Gown. It is your story, too.

by Susan Wittig Albert
for Story Circle Book Reviews
reviewing books by, for, and about women

Patsy Harman's memoir starts out with a revelation about drinking in order to sleep and the restless nights spent worrying about the practice, patients, and her life. The book immediately drew me in with rich character development and the range of emotions, successes, failures, worries, and triumphs that make up all of our lives. I felt a strong connection to her - her love of her work, her connection to her clients, her relationship with her husband, and her joys and sadnesses.

Unlike other memoirs that focus on birthing and assisting laboring moms, this book delves into all of the other aspects of working with women - violence, disease, puberty, trans-identification, sexuality, pregnancy, care, drug use, birth loss, and more.

I highly recommend this book, not just to birth professionals, but to anyone who loves a good read!

Patricia Harman's memoir, The Blue Cotton Gown, was an easy read. Through the author's intimate depictions of the patients in her OB/GYN clinic, the reader is drawn into this midwife's life. At times, I felt like I was peaking through the window into someone else's life, and not just Patsy's, but the many women she describes in her story, women we not only relate to, but feel for and come to know as if they were our own friends and confidants. Patsy's account was like reading a diary, it was that personal. I did not love her writing style as much as other readers, however. I found it to be a bit choppy, and the story as a whole did not flow as well as some other memoirs I have read. Loss and Found, by Karen Flyer, for example, is a much more compelling story in terms of a plot, and the reader is propelled from chapter to chapter. With The Blue Cotton Gown, I felt at times like I was meandering from chapter to chapter. Overall, I would recommend it to anyone interested in memoirs, or the field of midwifery.

I, too, am a transplant to West Virginia, and am also a women's health care professional. As it were, I live in the same town as the author, though we have not met, and I recognized some of the characters in the book (though none of the patients). Patsy conveys much of what health care professionals deal with on a daily basis, but also the strength and resilience of the West Virginians we serve. She also eloquently describes the beauty of this land, and since I knew many of the places she discusses, I felt as if I was walking (or cycling) right alongside her. This is a must read for women health professionals or anyone who has called Morgantown home. I look forward to meeting Mrs. Harman sometime and giving her one of the hugs she wants to dispense to the women she cares for so completely.

I haven't ever written a review before but feel compelled to do so with this book. I couldn't put it down. It's a memoir that reads like a novel (the best kind, I think). The women's stories and that of Patsy herself captivated me and drew me in and made me hopeful and sad and anxious and eager always to learn more. Their stories and hers are inspiring and yet they are ordinary and they are us.

Thank you, Nurse Midwife Counselor and Friend to so many, Patsy Harman. I loved your book and am eager to read a second one. Not only is your work remarkable but you've done something that isn't easy, you've written about it in a way that allows us to be included in your life and work. Thank you.

Tracey McGee
Chicago, IL

Patsy Harman's Blue Cotton Gown is like a sit down chat with your best friend. She interweaves the stories of her patients with stories of what's going on with other health clinic workers and what's happening in her own personal life. She also describes her corner of West Virginia and her vacation get away on Pelle Island in Lake Erie so graphically that you feel right at home there. To read this book is to find a friend who understands you, who you are. Thank you, Patsy

I really enjoyed this book until I got to the end. It just kind of left you hanging a little. I would have really liked an ending to tie up a few loose ends. Maybe, she plans on writing a second book. All in all I loved her honesty and the great details that she used in writing this book. It is a good read.

My book club read this and we all recommend it. It's the author's first work and we will look forward to the next. She is a midwife who clearly treats the whole woman with empathy and care. With her patients' and family's consent she describes professional and personal dilemmas that consistently ring true.

I loved this book! I love reading, but do not have much time so it generally takes me several months to get through a book. I read this book in a week! I MADE time because I couldn't put it down! It really made me think about the burdens that our healthcare providers carry. We share so many intimate details of our lives with them and ask them for advice, but what a heavy burden to carry around so many "secrets". One thing that made me think was how we, as people, expect healthcare professionals to be perfect. The truth is they are human. They have are best interest at heart, but when something doesn't work out perfectly, what happens? Costly lawsuits. Are some relevant? Of course. But many are not, and they hurt good healthcare providers like Dr. and Patsy Harman.

The stories of the patients touched my heart. I felt so many emotions. I loved it and highly recommend it to anyone.