Synopses & Reviews
A midwife’s memoir of living free and naturally against all odds
In her first, highly praised memoir, The Blue Cotton Gown, Patricia Harman recounted the stories that patients brought into her exam room, and her own story of struggling to help women as a nurse-midwife. In Arms Wide Open, a prequel to that acclaimed book, Patsy tells the story of growing up during one of the most turbulent times in America and becoming an idealistic home-birth midwife.
Drawing heavily on her journals, Patsy reaches back to tell us how she first learned to deliver babies, and digs even deeper down to tell us of her youthful experiments in living a fully sustainable and natural life. In the 1960s and ’70s, she spent over a decade with her first partner living in rural areas in Minnesota and Ohio before eventually purchasing a farm with Tom Harman in West Virginia.
Patsy recounts the hardships and the freedom of living in the wilds of Minnesota in a log cabin she and her lover built with their own hands, the only running water hauled from nearby streams. She describes long treks in the snow with her infant son strapped to her chest, setting up beehives for honey, and giving chase to a thieving bear. Eventually, yearning for more connection, Patsy moves into communal life, forming alliances with the eco-minded and antiwar counterculture that was both loved and reviled in those days.
As a young mother on the commune, Patsy offers her personal experience and assistance to other women who, like her, wish to have safe, natural births. In time, she becomes a self-taught midwife, delivering babies in cabins and on farms, sometimes in harrowing circumstances. But her passion for the work drives her to want to help more, to do more. And so she begins the professional training that will fully accredit her to assist in childbirth. In a final section, Patsy takes us into the present day, facing the challenges of running a women’s health clinic with her husband, mothering adult sons, and holding true to their principles and passions in the twenty-first century
More than a personal memoir, Arms Wide Open paints a portrait of a generation’s desperate struggle to realize their ideals as they battled against the elements and against the conservative society that labeled them “hippies” and belittled their ecological and pacifist beliefs. Her memoir is a beautiful recollection of the convictions of the baby boom generation, a riveting account of surviving in the wild, and a triumphant story of living responsibly in our over-consuming society.
From the Hardcover edition.
Synopsis
The author of Blue Cotton Gown recounts living free and naturally against all odds--and discovering her true calling as a midwife--in this deeply moving memoir
In her first, highly praised memoir, Patricia Harman told us the stories patients brought into her exam room, and her own story of struggling to help women as a nurse-midwife in medical practice with her husband--an OB/GYN--in Appalachia. Now, Patsy reaches back to the 1960s and 1970s, recounting how she learned to deliver babies and her youthful experiments with living a fully sustainable, natural life.
Drawing heavily on her journals, Arms Wide Open goes back to a time of counter-culture idealism that the boomer generation remembers well. Patsy opens with stories of living in the wilds of Minnesota in a log cabin she and her lover build with their own hands, the only running water being the nearby streams. They set up beehives and give chase to a bear competing for the honey. Patsy gives birth and learns to help her friends deliver as naturally as possible.
Weary of the cold and isolation, Patsy moves to a commune in West Virginia, where she becomes a self-taught midwife delivering babies in cabins and homes. Her stories sparkle with drama and intensity, but she wants to help more women than healthy hippie homesteaders. After a ten-year sojourn for professional training, Patsy and her husband return to Appalachia, where they set up a women's health practice. They deliver babies together--this time in hospitals--and care for a wide variety of gyn patients. They live in a lakeside contemporary home, though their hearts are still firmly implanted in nature. The obstetrical climate is changing. The Harmans' family is changing. The earth is changing--but Patsy's arms remain wide open to life and all it offers.
Her memoir of living free and sustainably against all odds will be especially embraced by anyone who lived through the Vietnam War and commune era, and all those involved in the back-to-nature and natural-childbirth movements.
Synopsis
In this prequel to the highly praised
The Blue Cotton Gown, Patricia Harman reaches back to her youthful experiments in living a fully sustainable and natural life in the 1960s and ’70s in rural Minnesota and on a commune in Ohio, forming alliances with the eco-minded and antiwar counterculture. From those riveting days as a self-taught midwife, delivering babies in cabins and on farms, sometimes in harrowing circumstances, Patsy takes us into the present day, where she faces the challenges of running a women’s health clinic with her husband, mothering adult sons, and holding true to her principles and passions in the twenty-first century.
About the Author
Patricia Harman, CNM, has published in the Journal of Midwifery and Women's Health and the Journal of Nursing Scholarship, as well as in alternative publications. She is a regular presenter at national midwifery conferences. Her first book, The Blue Cotton Gown, was published to acclaim in 2008. Harman lives and works near Morgantown, West Virginia, and has three sons.