How did you get into nursing? Birthing education?

In high school, there was this writing contest that a teacher suggested I enter and I won. My essay was titled “Why I want to be a nurse.” My picture was in the paper and I won $50. I guess I really didn’t have much choice after that. That award became my tuition for nursing school.

When my children were born, I was raving about what a great experience it had been while friends were saying what an awful time they’d had. My friends pressured me into teaching them how to improve their outlook for childbirth. That was the beginning of my career. My children became my demonstration models. Life came full circle when my pregnant children attended my classes.

Today, I say, “Birthing is not only my profession, but my passion.”

Tell me about birthing in different cultures.

When I filmed a birth in Argentina, I witnessed a woman in labor also waiting to have a tubal ligation. She was told to get out of the bed, as they needed the bed for another woman who had just had a baby. She quietly got out of bed and sat on a chair while another woman got right in! I asked the doctor why the waiting woman was having surgery. He held up his fingers and without words made a snipping motion as if cutting. Later, he explained they weren’t doing the ligation because this was her 12th child, but because her baby had died. In this Catholic country, it was OK to go ahead with the surgery to get the baby out and do the tubal ligation. It wasn’t OK though to speak of this out loud.

In Japan, as I followed a couple through labor, I was surprised to see what I called “breakaway underpants.” After delivery, the Velcro-seamed crotch separated for the insertion of a peri-pad. One of the guys in a childbirth class said, “Oh, they’ve had them for years in some of the stores I shop at!”

Thanks to the Internet, I was able to meet a Czech obstetrician and his wife at a maternity clinic near the Polish border. After a tour and watching videos of his underwater birthing techniques, my husband and I spent the night in their home. They expressed heartfelt sadness that we would stay only one night! Quite a different feeling from the head of obstetrics at the University of Prague Hospital, where they had doctors managing the labors ... not the laboring women or nurses.

In northern China, I toured with the head of obstetrics, who mentioned her own surgical delivery. When I asked why, she said, “To avoid the pain and keep my figure.” I silently reminded myself I was there to learn, not to teach.

Perhaps my biggest challenge and success was to teach physicians and midwives in the Amazon jungle, in Spanish, the merits of getting laboring women out of bed. I realized my Spanish was understandable when one physician told me, “You know we only put patients in bed for our convenience, don’t you?”

What is Common Hope?

Common Hope is a group of people dedicated to giving help and hope to poor Guatemalans.

There were originally many obstacles to going. In August 1997, my mother and I were both diagnosed with breast cancer and my daughter with thyroid cancer. We all were treated for it. In October 1999, a huge cancerous mass was found on my kidney. I decided that if I survived that kidney operation, I’d go to Guatemala.

I have now gone to Guatemala eight times and look upon it all as God putting his presence on someone’s face.

At Common Hope, I do a lot of health education. One of the social workers was a Canadian nurse and a nun sent to learn Spanish. She got married along with learning Spanish. We were both breast cancer survivors and taught breast self-exams to the 25 or so social workers. They, in turn, carried our teachings to 50 to 70 families. What a great multiplier!

One story that will forever stay with me was the woman who came to me after I had just shown one of my birth videos. She came with tears in her eyes saying, “Thank you, thank you.” Patting her large abdomen she added, “Thank you so much ... this is my eighth baby and now I know! I’ve never known what happened before. They string us up like chickens, but now I know! Thank you.”

Anything else you want to add?

When I was in the middle of battling cancer, someone said there were gifts associated with having the disease. I was so immersed in my battle that I couldn’t comprehend what they were talking about. Today, I see the very special gifts of everyday life and know that would not have come if I had not had cancer.