The Midwife (28 page)

Although Tobias gives us no sign, the community becomes aware that the prayer time is over, and everyone lifts his or her head. The men then harness ropes around Amos’s casket, slide out the boards that were bracing it over the hole, and begin to lower him into his grave.

I cannot account for the tears that form in my eyes as
that pine box begins its jerky descent into darkness. I did not know Amos well enough to mourn him, but I did know that he was a good man, a righteous man, who had extended his hand of mercy to me without asking questions. Now that his son has taken over as bishop of Copper Creek, I fear that hand will be retracted, and perhaps the tears are more for myself and my child than they are for the man who has just left this life behind.

Jolina Petersheim
is the bestselling author of
The Outcast
, which
Library Journal
gave a starred review and named one of the best books of 2013.
The Outcast
also became an ECPA, CBA, and Amazon bestseller and was featured in
Huffington Post
’s Fall Picks,
USA Today
,
Publishers Weekly
, and the
Tennessean
. Jolina’s sophomore novel,
The Midwife
, also taps into her and her husband’s unique Amish and Mennonite heritage that originated in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. They now live in the mountains of Tennessee with their young daughter. Whenever she’s not busy chasing this adorable toddler, Jolina is hard at work on her next novel. She blogs regularly at
www.jolinapetersheim.com
and
www.southernbelleviewdaily.com
.

Did you always aspire to be a novelist, or did you have other options on your career shortlist?

Every kid goes through a spell of wanting to be a nurse, doctor, or veterinarian. I was certainly no different and yearned to deliver babies and/or mend hurt animals. With my mother’s help, I raised a piglet, owls, turtles (snappers and painted), kittens, and a slew of abandoned baby birds that never survived the fledgling stage. Looking back, I think their immediate demise had something to do with the watered-down orange juice I fed to them through a dropper.

Then came the seismic shift in my future career: I entered third grade and started doing long division. My brain fizzled at the sight of so many numbers, which were all necessary for any kind of medical degree. I countered my arithmetic phobia with books
 
—oodles and oodles of books. I fell in love with words even more after discovering my dislike, nay
hatred
, of numbers. In sixth grade, I
used my journal with the tiny gold lock to record my first novella and
 
—even during my brief stint in college, trying to become the next Katie Couric
 
—have ever since been trying to perfect the novel form.

What was the most surprising thing that happened once your first novel was published?

One of the occupational hazards of working from home is that I am often in my bathrobe at eleven o’clock in the morning. That morning was no different. I knew I couldn’t leave the nursery without being seen through the glass front door, but I didn’t want the person to continue knocking and awaken my daughter who was drifting off to sleep. So I popped the collar of my bathrobe and walked right out.

The UPS man waved at me through the glass. I was relieved and promptly opened the door. I signed his clipboard, and he slid the box of books from my publisher across the hardwood floor. Then he asked if he could purchase an autographed copy for his wife’s birthday. My jaw about dropped, but I just closed the door and sprinted upstairs to fetch a copy. I signed it on the lap of my bathrobe and passed the book to him. He passed me back the correct change, waved good-bye, and bounced down the lane in his big brown rig. That was certainly my most surprising experience!

Was the process of writing your second book any different from writing your first?

I’d just found out I was expecting when I started writing
The Outcast
, my debut. I began writing
The Midwife
when our bouncing baby girl was twelve weeks old. So I went from writing for eight hours a day to writing whenever my daughter could be cajoled to sleep. Sometimes it felt nearly impossible to take care of her
 
—my precious little insomniac
 
—and the house, and still work on my novel.

The silver lining during that trying ten months of sleep deprivation is that it taught me to write whenever I got the chance. It didn’t matter if I was feeling inspired or if there were crumbs on the floor and dishes in the sink. When my sweet child’s eyes closed, it was time to grab my laptop and delve into Dry Hollow’s world. Not only was writing
The Midwife
one of the most challenging things I’ve done, it was also one of the best. I am so glad I had that creative outlet to pour myself into. At the end of the year, I not only had a little girl who (mostly) slept through the night, but a completed novel. I will take that over a spit-cleaned house any day.

Where did you get the idea for this story? Do you usually start with a scene, with plot, or with characters?

My closest friend in college had a heart transplant when she was fifteen. Because of the antirejection medication she was taking, she knew that when she married her fiancé, she would be unable to carry his child and mentioned using a gestational surrogate when it was time to expand their family. I thought often about the complications of such an undertaking: What if the surrogate became attached to the baby she carried? What if something was wrong with the
child? What if, God forbid, one of the biological parents died?

I mulled over the concept of surrogacy for many years. But it wasn’t until the birth of my own daughter that I knew that if she’d swum inside my womb and received sustenance from my body
 
—even if she was of no genetic connection to me
 
—she would indeed be my child. I would do
anything
for her, even if that meant going against the law. In the end, when I began writing
The Midwife
, the surrogacy thread became more of a tapestry of what it means to be a mother: genetics or love.

Is Fannie Graber based on anyone you’ve met? What about any of the other characters?

I researched both of my novels without realizing I was doing it. For
The Outcast
, I learned about a bone marrow transplant by watching my best friend receive her eight-year-old brother’s bone marrow at Vanderbilt Medical Center in Nashville. For
The Midwife
, I read two books by Ina May Gaskin
 
—a phenomenal midwife who was one of the forerunners of a hippie commune in Summertown, Tennessee. She is now in her early seventies and known throughout the world for her competency in the midwifery profession, even if some people disagree with her unorthodox methods.

I never got to meet Ina May, but Fannie Graber’s gentle nature and physical characteristics are based on her. In writing some of the birthing scenes in
The Midwife
, I also drew on my experiences with the midwives at a birthing center
where I’d hoped to have my daughter. Unfortunately, I ended up at the hospital, but even then the midwives stayed beside me. If we’re blessed with another child, I would like to visit The Farm in Summertown, Tennessee, and see if it’s a place I could give birth with Ina May Gaskin as my midwife. Who knows? Maybe she would even let me interview her in between contractions!

How has your Mennonite background shaped your writing? Did you always intend to write about Mennonite culture?

I never thought I would write about my Mennonite heritage because I was just too close to view it objectively. It wasn’t until someone told me a true story about an affair that had rippling effects throughout an Old Order Mennonite community that I began to see a different spin on the quintessential “bonnet fiction” genre. I have witnessed firsthand that the Plain people are not a utopian society but struggle with the fallibility of man that affects the rest of us. I have combined this viewpoint with my experiences of living in a Christian community for eight years as an adolescent.

I am vastly intrigued by what pulls a community together and what tears it apart and how this convergence of separate belief systems affects the families locked within the community’s confines. So far, I believe this combination has created its own niche, since I use a story to explore the intricacies of community rather than using a community merely as the setting for a story. I will write these narratives for as long as they come to me and aren’t forced.

You have used somewhat unusual storytelling techniques in both of your novels. In
The Outcast
, one of the POV characters is, in fact, dead; and in
The Midwife
, the chronology is fractured. Why did you choose this technique for
The Midwife
in particular?

The Midwife
is told through two perspectives: Beth Winslow and Rhoda Mummau. These two separate narratives help divide the timeline and add tension as the stories overlap and the reader understands where the action of both is headed. I like to begin my story by knowing the characters’ destinations, but the journey is always fraught with its own twists and turns. Oftentimes, I am as surprised as the reader; this makes the novel very fun to write!

Are there certain themes you hope to weave into all of your stories?

I like to address topics that intrigue me in everyday life: What hidden strengths and weaknesses will erupt in a community when the families inside it are placed under physical or emotional duress? Then I take these families to the very brink of themselves and help them find healing and redemption through a deeper relationship with their Creator, which also leads to deeper, healthier relationships with each other.

What are you working on next?

A dystopian novel set in a community in Montana that addresses the Mennonite belief of pacifism, even when faced with losing one’s life.

1. One of
   The Midwife
   ’s main themes is learning to trust God, even after our worst fears come true. How does Rhoda’s spiritual journey progress throughout the story? At what point does it falter? Does this remind you of your own spiritual journey? Why or why not?
   
2. The Midwife
   is told mainly through two viewpoints: Beth’s and Rhoda’s. Though they are actually one and the same, what differences do you see in their responses to hardship? What caused the change?
   
3. Rhoda loves her estranged mother almost to the same extent that she despises her. Have you ever had a family member who incites this kind of response in your heart? If so, how do you work through those feelings?
   
4. Have you ever had a family member or friend pass away before significant issues between you could be reconciled? How would you feel if you received a letter from them like the one that Rhoda receives from her
   deceased mother? Would you welcome such a letter or not? Why?
   
5. Though Rhoda is a responsible head midwife, she rejects any medical advancement because she fears that modern technology, such as electricity, will illuminate the secrets of her past. In what ways does your past thwart your ability to move forward? Is there ever a time when it’s okay not to “move on”? If so, how can you discern and identify such times?
   
6. Hopen Haus’s derelict state could be seen as a symbol of Rhoda’s and Amelia’s broken spirits: their facades don’t look as bad as their lives’ crumbling foundations. In what ways do we portray that we have everything together? In what ways do cultural forms, such as social media, encourage this facade?
   
7. The Midwife
   is filled with relationships between mothers and daughters, both through birth and through circumstance. In a way, the midwife Fannie Graber is a surrogate mother to Beth, just as Beth is a surrogate mother to Amelia. Who has been like a mother to you? Do you feel like this relationship adds or detracts from the one with your birth mother? Why?
   
8. Could you see yourself serving as a gestational surrogate like Beth (no genetic connection), or a traditional surrogate like Mary Beth Whitehead (the child genetically half yours)? How do you think the
   challenges
    
   —physical, emotional, and otherwise
    
   —would be different for surrogates in each of these methods?
   
9. Do you think that surrogacy should be legal? If so, do you think a surrogate should get paid for her services? Why or why not?
   
10. If you were a gestational surrogate like Beth, and the parents were contemplating terminating the pregnancy, how would you respond? Would you also run with the child, or do you believe that the parents retain the rights since you have no genetic connection? What rights should a surrogate have in such a scenario?
    
11. Do you think it is morally wrong for Beth to accept Thomas Fitzpatrick’s money when she knows she isn’t going to keep her promise to terminate the pregnancy? Do two wrongs ever make a right? Why or why not?
    
12. Do you think it’s safe for midwives to deliver babies at a facility like Hopen Haus without a doctor presiding over them? Why or why not? In “real life,” do you think Hopen Haus would be shut down for its primitive conditions?