Customer Reviews

A Midwife's Story

5 star:		(17)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This beautifully written book takes us behind the scenes for an insider's look at day to day Amish life. Midwife Penny Armstrong's moving vignettes let us see the real Amish way of life. This isn't the usual, often inaccurate, overview of Amish life that's sold to tourists. It's also not a scholarly work. This book is written in a James Herriotesque style that enables us to really know and appreciate the Amish.
The book starts off with Penny's training at a Glasgow hospital that cared more for procedure than it did for its patients. Then we're off to Philadelphia to a more patient friendly hospital where Penny got her American certification. Finally, we reach Amish country. The minute Penny sees the picturesque landscape and feels the tranquillity of the slow paced life she knows this is the place for her.
The Amish take to Penny because she respects and admires them. She doesn't just deliver their babies, she becomes their friend. She laughs with them and cries with them. She prays with them and plays with them. She celebrates with them and mourns with them. She's invited to their homes for canning frolics. Her husband, Richard, helps them fill their silos by driving a team of mules. They become part of the community.
The reader is treated to an intimate look at the Amish. We're literally in their bedrooms! We see the affectionate bond between husbands & wives. We see their staunch faith exhibited by a young wife, 8 months pregnant, who loses her husband in an accident. We see the community rally around a young couple that needs assistance. We also see the love parents have for a sick, helpless child. I can't say more. I don't want to spoil things.
This book is sensitive, entertaining and informative. It is a must read for anyone fascinated by the Amish.

Imagine studying midwifery in Scotland, then going among the Amish of Pennsylvania to practice your trade. That's what Armstrong did and her stories about her adventures are riveting. She writes with charm and sensitivity of the joys and pains of birthing, living, dying among the quiet and unassuming ways of a community of simple, God-fearing folk who come to return and appreciate her love and care.

As she strives to be accepted by local doctors and the local hospital she struggles with her own doubts about institutional births as opposed to home ones.

A moving, lovely and loving book that respects and cherishes a people and a way of life, A MIDWIFE'S STORY will make you laugh and cry. Best of all, you can find a new understanding and respect for America's Pennsylvania Dutch Amish if you look for it. I do hope you don't miss this one.

More than any other written account a midewife's story brings the world of a modern midwife to life with all the conflicting feelings, time demands and conflicts. The treatment of the Amish is tasteful and those trashing her for being non-critial have a personal bone to pick that has nothing to do with this book.
As a personal friend of a midwife who serves the Amish as an English and is accepted as was the author, I can affirm they see both the good and the bad in that society just as it exists in every society.

Midwives have had to learn to listen and not judge empowering all women to make their own choices. All of us should do this and it applies even when we don't always agree with the choices they make. It is too bad that those seemingly most likely to deny women the freedom to follow their own heart's desires, are those whose aim of freedom and empowerment is noble but whose concept of freedom ends when the women choose an old fashioned life that doesn't measure up to feminist ideals. The author thankfully is a modern woman, independant and yet untroubled in granting others freedom to be who and what they are.

Penny's book is outstanding. If you can read through the end without tears you are tougher than most, definately tougher than me.

As a future certified nurse midwife, I read this book to inspire me in my studies. The story did much more than inspire my studies - it inspired and rekindled my faith in womankind and in the natural process of birth. A must-read for all medical professionals!

I thoroughly enjoyed reading this book. It pictures how truly wonderful, natural and peaceful childbirth can be when faith and love are present and fear is absent. If only all women had such a midwife and trusted their own bodies!

This is a great book that enters the world of both midwifery and the Amish. Actually, it's more about the Amish than midwifery so if you are looking for a book that is soley about birthing babies, than I would consider Baby Catcher or something similar.
Really enjoyed this book.

reads like fiction, but it's all true! (sometimes those books are the best kind.) very well written -- compared the harsh, cold, uncaring environment of hospital care & delivery & contrasted it with the warm, caring, personalized care & delivery that you can expect from a midwife like penny. also gave a charming portrait of the amish & insights into their way of life. someone sent me this book as a gift &, although it took me a long time to get around to reading it, once i picked it up, i had a hard time putting it down!

(it's hard to believe that anyone would want to level harsh criticism toward a community of people as stable & caring as the amish -- as another reviewer has suggested! i've visited the amish (very SHORT visits, i'll admit) & saw nothing that would even suggest the harsh & brutal treatment of women that one has come to expect of a community, say, like the taliban, for instance. but the review in question was written before 9/11, so maybe the reviewer was unaware of how good we women here in america have it, INCLUDING the amish? even so, can the reviewer point out another group amongst the godless, familyless, communityless, materialistic, selfish & self-centered, believe-in-nothing-&-stand-for-nothing-but-one's-own-selfish-&-self-centered-self "english" that fares better overall than the amish? it's not like they aren't free to leave any time they want & live another way (unlike the way conditions were under the taliban!) like yeah, who in their right mind would want to live in a beautiful rural community, be constantly surrounded by people who love you & who are really there to help you, including a HUSBAND (fancy that!) & still have the natural strength to create beautiful surroundings (& delicious food -- yummy!) while at the same time creating a new life to share this beautiful world with? duh. as for me, i could easily skip a few more boring years of grade school for this. & college? that's where you get your values, beliefs, strength & character ripped away by dishonest, liberal, left-wing professors & that entire rotten-to-the-core establishment. but i digress.)

the amish rock & so does this book.

if you think you want to have your baby in a hospital, read this book. (did you know that maternity wards were originally established to give homeless women a place to give birth? it was meant to be a poor substitute for what homeless women didn't have -- namely, a loving HOME to give birth in!)

if you think you want to have your baby at home, read this book. (it'll just make you feel better about what you already know & arm you with some more ammo to lob toward the people who think that you're crazy!)

if you think you want to be a midwife, read this book. (you'll be glad you did!) :)

& that's all i have to say about that.

I'm an older guy, and I don't remember why I first read this story about 15 years ago, but I have read it every few years since, and I can never get through it without tears towards the end. It is a lovely and very touching inside view of a young woman's personal Odyssey through the rigors and perils of learning her art in Scotland to practicing it among the community of Amish in Pennsylvannia. I was at my wife's side when our two sons were born, perhaps that is why her story always touches me so. Penny's book has always been on my "A" list :).

This book is wonderful. In the form of a story, without dogma or angry politics, this book opens the door to a way of life that is simple, natural, and harmonious. The emphasis is on birth. While I am not Amish and do not strive to be, I do belief birth is wonderful, natural, empowering, peaceful, and unique every time. This book is written with the same perspective on birth and nourished me in my pregnancy.
I have recommended this book to many women navigating a first pregnancy. While they have made a wide range of choices regarding practitioners and birth locations, they all loved receiving what this book offers.

This book was difficult to put down. It is a remarkable story about a midwife's training and practice in a culture very different from her own. Reading this book made me want to train to be a midwife myself - and I will as soon as I complete my nurse's training.