margaret christie mcfarlane stokes

two years ago my father died

and I never felt connected to him

this is partly why I started researching my family tree

to find some connection, for something familiar
through servants and weavers
illicit affairs and suicides

and then - my elusive 3x great grandmother

MARGARET CHRISTIE b 1820, married 1837, d 1889

well, she has been a research challenge

and now I know her, I know what she gave me. She is my first paternal link to health care work, and perhaps I am hers.

her husband committed suicide in 1856, I glean from it that he had possibly been involved in union organizing, and was being banned from other Clydebank factories, and it was publicized enough to find him.

but I have wondered about her - 36 years old in 1856 and 8 children later and a husband who committed a very public suicide in front of his co-workers...well I wasn't sure

I found her..in the 1861 Scotland Census married to a John Stoker (sp Stokes)
The irony is I already have Stokes in my happy Cork family roots

But Margaret - well she must have been so resourceful

she became a MIDWIFE in BELFAST!
I stumbled upon an article in 1869 that mentions her

and she is my first link with my health care career.
so I thank her
and she knows now I carry her with me.
I carry part of her spirit as I also treat others...funny my affinity for treating pregnancy and fertility issues


and now, my 3x greatgrandmother, I can nearly hear you whisper as I work with others.
I trust you are with me.
I carry you
I carry you in every cell

the safety of homebirths

i had hoped for a homebirth the first time around with c, but then he decided to be a preemie and a footling breech (rare) to boot! so my plans of moving freely around my home, and having a natural experience with the comforts of familiarity, evaporated in an instant.

now pregnant with #2, i am going to be trying for a homebirth again. i really connected with my midwife the first time around and feel like i can trust her, and myself, implicitly.

i live in a country where homebirths are not the norm, and are in fact often scoffed at, or thought of as less safe.

which brings me to my point - more evidence on the safety of homebirthing...

Home births 'as safe as hospital'

some highlights...
"Research from the Netherlands - which has a high rate of home births - found no difference in death rates of either mothers or babies in 530,000 births."

"But even when she needed to be transferred to the care of a doctor in a hospital, the risk to her or her baby was no higher than if she had started out her labour under the care of a midwife in hospital."

"The Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists (RCOG) said it supported home births "in cases of low-risk pregnancies provided the appropriate infrastructures and resources are present to support such a system." (UK)