The Frozen River

by Ariel Lawhon

The act of mothering is not limited to the bearing of children. This is another thing that I have learned in all my long years of midwifery. Labor may render every woman a novice, but pregnancy renders every woman a child. Scared. Vulnerable. Ill. Exhausted. Frail. A pregnant woman is, in most ways, a helpless woman. Her emotions are erratic. Her body betrays her.