1982 - Linda Delivers, Back to the Grind; Calving Glaciers and the Great Land (Alaska); A New Soul Seeks Entry
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Linda committed to finding a job with her now legal medical credentials and experience, feeling she could not be just a Labor and Delivery nurse. But no hospital or medical group in Central Virginia at that point was employing Certified Nurse Midwives. So, Linda began to do home deliveries, and forged connections for referrals and backup. An expecting couple would see an Obstetrician to establish a relationship, but Linda would do their prenatal care and delivery. With Linda giving care, obstetricians knew that their patient were going to attempt a home delivery and offered the couple something besides the vociferous resistance or judgmental criticism that was the norm in those days.
In other words, there was cooperation, and she was able to bring a number of new souls into this world in a way that parents felt was far more loving, peaceful, and safe. Yet for those eschewing the medical system entirely, she made sure they also got the attentive care and support during their pregnancy and labor, with an agreed plan for hospital and OB backup, and ultimately, the loving and successful home births they sought.
In the two years they remained in Charlottesville, she and several other Midwives fought and eventually won privileges at the local hospital, bringing a level of care and a non-interventional philosophy of natural birth into the mainstream. Today there are at least six midwifery practices in Charlottesville, and even the staid and straight University system saw the wisdom and consumer demand, now with its own midwives on staff. Home birth, too, is now an accepted and ever more widespread practice, and the community is immensely better off.
Her pioneering and unflagging efforts and enthusiasm literally changed the face of healthcare.
They came to Bellingham to board the “Alaska Marine Highway”. On an ocean-worthy ferry system transporting a delightful mix of commercial and village folk with tourists, they steamed through the Alexander Archipelago, more shoreline than most of the rest of the world due to its multitude of islands, coves, and fjords.
Alaska. To them, it was like when the world was young, amazing wonders at every turn, humpbacks and orca broaching beside the vessel, bald eagles thick as east coast crows, grizzlies rambling the shoreline: these weren’t constant occurrences, but some of them happened every day. Sprawled on airliner-like chairs with the kids and their kit, the on-board Park Ranger jumped onto the PA to announce sightings: the ferry almost listed to the side where passengers scrambled to catch the view and marvel.
In Juneau, they rented kayaks, and a National Park Service boat carried them into Glacier National Park. Camping on a small moraine, they abided for days directly across from the glacier, which thunderously calved to lap waves up on the shore below their tent. When the rain intermittently cleared, they paddled among the ice flows at a safe distance, the face of the glacier rearing above them, harbor seals popping up their heads feet from their kayak. Farther out, bald eagles settled and whirled above orca and even humpbacks, like seagulls in the south.
That pretty much decided it. If they could get a chance to come back again, they certainly would. And they did.
Schedules were tight and opportunities few in those months, and Linda and Paul felt pretty sure when and where they conceived Jared, their soon-to-be second son: a small rest stop outside Culpeper.