Sibyl does, however, detect a fetal heartbeat. Sibyl performs CPR, but after the final cycle, Sibyl does not feel a pulse or hear a heartbeat. Suddenly Charlotte has a seizure that Sibyl believes is caused by a stroke.

Charlotte has grown tired and is struggling to find the energy to keep up with Sibyl's demands. Sibyl continues to encourage Charlotte, convinced the baby only needs one more good push. Over four hours, the baby moves down the birth canal but stubbornly refuses to emerge into the world. Gratefully, the bleeding stops and Charlotte appears to be out of danger. It seems there is no hope of moving Charlotte. Sibyl decides to go get her car and move Charlotte that way, but the driveway is so slick Sibyl ends up driving her car into a snow bank. Unfortunately, an ice storm has knocked out the phones. When Sibyl notes some excessive bleeding, she suggests Charlotte be moved to a hospital. However, things begin to change as the labor progresses late into the night. When Charlotte goes into labor, it seems the birth will be as uneventful as the pregnancy. Charlotte's pregnancy is uneventful, except for a brief struggle with anemia, convincing Sibyl Danforth, her midwife, that she is a good candidate for a home birth. When Charlotte becomes pregnant with her second child, she chooses to visit a midwife rather than an ob-gyn.

Charlotte has few friends and is often lost in the shadow of her minister husband, Asa. Midwives is a novel of family, of trust, and of loyalty that will keep the reader guessing until the very last page.Ĭharlotte Fugett Bedford is a quiet woman who recently moved to Vermont from Arkansas. Sibyl's young daughter, fourteen-year-old Connie, watches from the sidelines, powerless to control the chaos that threatens to tear her family apart. A trial that is supposed to be about the death of a single woman turns into a battle between science and nature as the right of a woman to choose home birth is debated. The novel tells the story of Sibyl Danforth, a midwife put on trial for the death of one of her clients. Midwives is the third novel from acclaimed author, Chris Bohjalian.

Midwives by Chris Bohjalian