The Birth House

Book 79 of my 2015 Reading Challenge

read from October 24 - November 1

The Birth House by Ami McKay

Summary (via Goodreads)

An arresting portrait of the struggles that women faced for control of their own bodies, The Birth House is the story of Dora Rare—the first daughter in five generations of Rares.
As apprentice to the outspoken Acadian midwife Miss Babineau, Dora learns to assist the women of an isolated Nova Scotian village through infertility, difficult labors, breech births, unwanted pregnancies, and unfulfilling sex lives. During the turbulent World War I era, uncertainty and upheaval accompany the arrival of a brash new medical doctor and his promises of progress and fast, painless childbirth. In a clash between tradition and science, Dora finds herself fighting to protect the rights of women as well as the wisdom that has been put into her care. 

My Opinion

This read was nothing like I expected.  It ebbed and flowed and there were points that I wasn't sure what the book was actually about but I was very interested as I read.

There was a life choice of Dora's that I didn't want to happen.  And I was very surprised when vibrators were introduced - I never thought a woman's pleasure was considered until much later in time.

A Quote from the Book

"My house became the birth house. That's what the women came to call it, knocking on the door, ripe with child, water breaking on the porch. First-time mothers full of questions, young girls in trouble and seasoned women with a brood already at home...They all came to the house, wailing and keening their babies into the world. I wiped their feverish necks with cool, moist cloths, spooned porridge and hot tea into their tired bodies, talked them back from outside of themselves."