After talking with Jack about midwife and doula training, I decided to go to the library and pick up a couple of books on the subject. Bad idea. As if the biological clock weren't ALREADY in overdrive! Last week I read Catherine Taylor's Giving Birth, and while the first part made me mad, I loved the second part and have been freaking Odious out by occasionally sighing about how much I want a baby. Taylor is a journalist who decided to research natural childbirth after becoming pregnant with her second child, and shadowed a number of different midwives in order to write a book to inform women of their options. Having been born at home myself, I've always had a definite opinion on the subject, and am tremendously grateful to my mother for making my first experience in the world a wonderful one, and for creating an immediate strong bond between us. I think it's one of the reasons that my family is so intimate! It's unfortunate that most women don't know how safe natural home birth is, and how much more pleasant and fulfilling than a drugged, induced hospital birth. I got very angry reading the first part of this book, as she describes her experience with nurse-midwives and the birthing center in a hospital--I suppose it's better than most hospital births, but for women expecting traditional midwife care it would be greatly disappointing. In the second part, however, she trains to be a doula, attends several home births, and finally decides to give birth at home herself. It's wonderful and inspiring and I can't wait.