After Ruth's birth, the second time I spent hours by a bedside was when my mother died. Family and friends sat, or stood around the double bed, as the solemn spectacle unfolded. I date that moment as the time when I first began to fear my own death. Despite Epicurus, I now believe that the fear of death is a wholesome fear, no less significant for my reverent sense of the finitude of my life than the amazement that I, too, was born. Every hospice nurse should spend time assisting a midwife.
Midwives have a less elevated status than hitherto.
Now the paedriatricians assume control. But the mind of the paedriatrician is focused on the medical issues. And rightly so. Ruth's birth did not go well. There were complications.