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interview ami mckay 
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In The Birth House, author Ami McKay tells the story of Dora Rare, a young woman growing up in early 1900s Nova Scotia. Apprenticed to the local midwife, Dora learns first-hand about the miracle of birth and the special bond among women. Following the midwife's death, Dora becomes the soul provider of care for women in need; but when a medical doctor threatens the continued practice of midwifery in the region, Dora is forced to take a stand against modern medical science and its impersonal practices. Here's what the author had to say about her debut novel. |
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Q: I'd like to start with the inspiration for this book. It was not long after you moved to Scots Bay, Nova Scotia from the U.S. that you first learned about the history of your home as a birth house. How was it that you came to learn this and what prompted you to make it the focus of your debut novel? A: When I first moved into the house, I had no idea that it had once been a birth house for the community. It wasn't long after, however, that I became pregnant with my second child. When the news spread that I was going to have a baby, my neighbor and other women in Scots Bay began telling me stories about the midwife who had once lived in the house. I was fascinated by the things they told me - they shared such wonderful tales of birth, tradition, dedication, and caring. I knew I wanted to find a way to share those stories with others. Having written and produced freelance radio documentaries in the past, I decided that I would record as much oral history as I could and go from there. In the meantime, I also began researching modern midwifery and looked for a midwife to assist at the birth of my son. The more I learned about the past and the present, the more I knew that I wanted to have a homebirth. My son Jonah was the next in a long line of babies born in my house. Shortly after his birth I began making my first efforts towards writing what would become The Birth House. Q:How did the experience of a home birth differ from that of your first child, and how critical was it to your decision to write this book? A: The two births were very different. I was in my mid 20's when my older son was born. I was living in Indiana and in graduate school. I didn't know anything about modern midwifery and assumed it was a thing of the past. Because I had no insurance and no money, I became part of the system and basically felt like I had very little choice or say in how my baby would be born. Although I had wanted to have as natural a birth as possible, when I was ten days past my due date, my labor was induced. Once you're hooked up to an IV and the fetal monitor in place, you're stuck in bed. I had to fight every step of the way to keep other interventions from happening. There were some tense moments along the way…I had to be very vocal about not wanting an epidural or other pain meds, when things got slow during the delivery the doctor pulled out a vacuum extractor (four other doctors came in to witness this, since they had never seen one used). In the end, the extractor wouldn't stay put on my baby's hairy little head and the kind labor nurse at my side said, “You can do this yourself. Just ignore the docs and push!” I did and happily Ian was born. My homebirth experience was the complete opposite. I felt that my choices lead the way for the day. I did the things I wanted to do. I took a long walk, I ate enough food to sustain me, I even played my celtic harp. The midwife and her assistant came early in the day and we shared stories, tea and they made my husband, my son and me feel confident and comfortable. In many ways, I feel that this birth healed some of the trauma from the first. I felt much more connected to the birthing process and my older son was thrilled to witness his brother's birth. In the hours, days and weeks after my homebirth, I was showered with care and help from my midwives as well as the women in my community. They brought enough food for weeks! Their kindness truly touched my heart and also made me question why we had lost this “community of birth” in so many places around the world. At that point, I wasn't sure how I would go about it, but I knew I wanted to share these thoughts with others. Q: Where did you look for inspiration for your characters? Is Dora based on anyone in particular? A: My characters come from a real ‘soup’ of things going on in my head. They are usually made up of traits taken from people past and present, some I've known, some I've only heard or read about. Dora was certainly formed that way. I had visited Mary Huntley, the real-life adopted daughter of the midwife who had lived in my house. The first thing she said to me was, “My mother died when I was three days old. When no other family could care for me, the midwife took me in as her own.” Right then, I knew I had a story I wanted to tell. Also, in preparation for my visit, Mary had written down all the names of the women who had given birth in the house and all their children's names. She sat in her chair, her 89-year-old voice wavering a bit, as she proudly read each name out loud. After that visit, I tried to find out whatever I could about Mary's mother. Unfortunately, there wasn't anything left behind from her days as a young woman. I wondered what had led her to become the midwife for the community, especially at a time when the medical establishment was trying to eliminate midwifery. I began digging around in county and provincial archives, reading letters of women from that era to try to find a voice for this young woman. And, inevitably, there's also a bit of myself in Dora as well…I was a bookish and strange girl! Q: This story is an emotional and thought-provoking look at childbirth and a woman's right to exert control over her body in the 1900s, yet some would say that it has implications for contemporary times. Do you agree? A: Absolutely. I don't think I would have written this particular book if I hadn't felt so passionate about what's happening with women's health and childbirth today. Without a doubt, we're currently seeing the backlash of the medicalization of childbirth. Women like Shelia Kitzinger and Ina May Gastkin have lead the way for years…I felt part of my work in writing The Birth House was to create a piece of art, a work of fiction that would stir up questions, open up conversations. It's been an amazing thing to tour across Canada during the past few months. Every place I go, I meet readers who are anxious to share their thoughts about the book, to tell their birth stories, to get to the heart of what's happening with their physical and emotional well being. Q: In the book, there is a sharp distinction in the attitudes of women from Scot's Bay and those who have come from outside the community. These “women from away” are throughout the book Dora's closest friends and confidants. In your mind what separated these women from those of the community, and how important were their characters to the telling of this story? Does Dora also become a “woman from away?” A: On a very simple level, this is a tradition that's gone on in small communities forever. The women of The Occasional Knitters Society are all W.F.A.'s “women from away,Ó they have all come from Newfoundland via marriage to men from Scots Bay, a fairly common practice at the time. Dora, even though born and raised in the Bay, has been an outsider in the community from the moment she was born. She's the first female in several generations, she was born with a caul over her face (a sign of psychic ability), and she grew up under the wing of Miss Babineau, the community's midwife and wisewoman. The idea of ‘the outsider’ and the implications that come with it have always been compelling to me. They see the world in a different way, they can act as magnifying glass of sorts, and they can offer friendship to Dora in a way that she's never known. Q: You made a big change moving from the bustling streets of Chicago to the quiet of Nova Scotia. Do you think of yourself as a “woman from away?” A: I was definitely considered as someone ‘from away’ when I moved to Scots Bay. I'm sure that money was probably lost from a few pockets after we made it through the first winter and decided to stay! For the most part, it's always been good-hearted teasing and fun. Now that I've lived here for over seven years, I've grown to understand it. This is such an isolated place and those who have lived here for generations and have strong ties to the land and the sea have earned the right to call it home. They are protective of their stories, traditions and the land, and I have a great respect for that. Q: How have the people of Scot's Bay responded to your book? A: In many wonderful ways. Although there have been a couple of people who felt the book wasn't their cup of tea and were fairly vocal about it, overwhelmingly the response has been a positive one. Most people in the community have been supportive and excited about it. In fact, my neighbor called me one evening after I was on the national news and exclaimed, “That's pretty good for a little girl from the Bay!” I guess I must have gotten something right. Q: The novel is described as a “literary scrapbook,” drawing upon historical journals, letters, and newspaper clippings for much of its content. Do you feel that your journalism background benefited you in this process, and was it difficult making the transition to writing for the novel form? A: My journalism background definitely helped with my research. I have a real passion for hunting down information and for collecting stories. The difficulty came when I realized that I didn't have enough information to put together a non-fiction book and that the only way I'd be able to write the story I wanted to tell was to write a novel. I resisted the idea of writing a novel for quite some time…the idea of it was intimidating. But once I settled on Dora's voice, the literary scrapbook form followed and the entire process became a wonderful adventure for me. I wanted the novel to reflect the way women live their lives, the way mothers collect bits and pieces of the day in their pockets Ð a recipe, a letter from a friend, a magazine article, a note to be placed in a journal. We are constantly recreating life and making sense of things in this way. Q: Much of what Miss Babineau passes on to Dora is knowledge of tradition, symbolism, and folklore. How did you go about researching this information and were the people of Scot's Bay integral to this process? A: Marie Babineau's knowledge comes from many different sources. She's a traiteur (a folk healer) as well as an herbalist and a midwife. I read books on Acadian and Cajun folklore and healing, books on the native plants of Nova Scotia, and books on turn-of-the-century and aboriginal midwifery. I talked to my neighbors, my mother and my husband's grandmother about home remedies that had been passed down through the family. I love to garden, so I planted my own herb garden to see what would and wouldn't grow here. I walked in the woods behind the house to see what could be found. I also took many long walks with a good friend who is a midwife. Q: When reading The Birth House, I couldn't help but feel that this is a different kind of love story. Do you think this is a love story? A: I love that you saw it that way! I do think it's a love story in a few different ways. There's Dora's notion of what love should be (largely learned from Jane Austen novels) and then there's what she learns about relationships in the end. There's Miss B's love and care for tradition, there's the men's (like Dora's father) love of the Bay and the land, and there's the members of the OKS's love and sisterhood for one another. Most importantly, I wanted to convey how remarkable a mother's love for a child is. There's a line in the first part of the book where Dora, only 17, has witnessed her first birth and she comments that she feels that birth isn't really the miracle, but “How a mother comes to love her child, her caring at all for this thing that's made her heavy, lopsided and slow, this thing that made her wish she were dead…that's the miracle.” Q: This is your debut novel, are you working on anything else? A: Yes, I'm currently working on my next novel, The Virgin Cure. It's set in 1870's NYC and is loosely based on the life of my great-great grandmother, one of the first female doctors in the city. She was studying syphilis at a time when men thought that de-flowering a young girl would cure them of the disease. This is a myth that we are seeing played out today in a devastating way in African villages in connection with AIDS. So again, I'm writing about women's history and health, but tackling issues that will remind readers of things that need our attention right now. That sounds wonderful. I can't wait to read it. Thank you for your time.
Ami McKay lives with her family in Nova Scotia. The Birth House is her debut novel. For more information on Ami and The Birth House you may visit her online at www.amimckay.com.
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