Hello my long neglected readers! I have missed you and I have missed writing for you. It’s been a transition time in my personal life and I’ve had to re-prioritize certain things. Now that I’m more settled, I have the ability to get back into my passion project, The Silent Mother. I feel that you deserve a bit of an explanation as to what’s been going on and what’s coming up next.

Back in August of this year, I did a thing that I should have done twenty-some years ago. I went back to school to finish my undergraduate degree. I failed to complete it because I burned out. Burned out on what? Research and writing, believe it or not. Twenty years ago, I didn’t have the skills to speak up and ask for help or to know how to take a break. So, I quit.

As it turns out, I kind of dig this research and writing thing. I have one more semester to go, with only two classes left to finish. From there, my hope is to go to graduate school. I’m in the midst of my application process now. My plan, should it come to fruition, is to study maternal child health, specifically in two arenas: the efficacy of childbirth education and the historical influences on maternity care.

What does this mean? It means that if we don’t know the history, we don’t know the “why” of how we engage in maternity care. If we don’t know the “why”, we can’t make improvements. The improvements I seek to make are in patient education, physician and nursing education with the results being more effective communication between patients and staff. To do this, moving into graduate school so I have the ability to do research properly, would allow me to help many more families than I do currently with my work at Shining Light.

Wish me luck on my applications! I’m optimistic, but could use all the luck and support I can get.

On Thursday, January 3rd, I’ll begin my new series on Dr. Grantly Dick-Read. For those who don’t know, he is the author of Childbirth Without Fear (1942). He is the doctor who coined the term “natural childbirth”.

What you’ll be reading in the next few months is the senior Capstone paper I wrote while finishing this BA in Religious Studies, entitled The Revealed Obstetrics of Dr. Grantly Dick-Read and the Entanglement of Faith and Medicine. In this serialized release, I’ll explore questions of faith vs. evidence based science in the context of pregnancy and childbirth. By the end of the series, I’ll look to questions on implications for current practices in childbirth education.

I do hope you stay tuned with me every Thursday for a new installment. If you’d like to support my graduate school endeavors, please do consider becoming a patron.