My sister, Chrissy, and her dog Javi stayed over at my mom‘s place on Sunday night, we had a nice quiet evening. I spent a lot of time texting friends and family pictures from the wedding, then crashed out early, very grateful to be sleeping in my own bed.
Monday was work in the morning, then in the afternoon my mom, sister, and I went to a screening of a film called Arrest the Midwife as part of the Mill Valley Film Festival. It was a documentary centering on a group of midwives who were charged with various felonies and misdemeanors around practicing midwifery in New York state, where midwifery is not allowed unless you have a Masters in Nursing. These women serve mainly the rural poor and Mennonite communities in the area. They all had many years of experience and had each successfully delivered hundreds of babies. One of the midwives resorted to buying an old house and converting it into a birthing center across the border in Pennsylvania, where certified professional midwives are legally allowed to work. It is crazy to think that a woman can’t choose where she wants to give birth, how she wants to give birth and who she wants to have assist her in that process in some states.
There was a Q&A afterwards with the films director. I learned so much, not just about the legal issues around midwifery practice and how it varies so much from state to state, but also about the Mennonite community. I knew very little about that community and made assumptions based on what I had seen in movies. I realized how limited and harmful those beliefs were when I saw the women, men and children in that community coming out in droves to support these midwives and to advocate for laws that allowed women more choice in the birth process. This is a community that is intentionally closed, coming out to the most fear inducing places such as courthouses and state legislature meetings and making their feelings known. It was so inspiring to see women who spend much of their time at home with their children having the courage to stand up for the women who supported them during childbirth.
