Book Review: The Blue Cotton Gown by Patricia Harman

The Blue Cotton Gown, a midwife's memoir by Patricia Harman is a beautiful beautiful book. The book is two hunderd and eighty nine pages long and it is published by Beacon, published in 2008 the book details Harman's account of working as a midwife and OB provider to women in West Virginia. Harman along with her husband Tom who is a doctor of obstetrics have opened their own practice to serve the women of their community. This book documents their struggles, tragedies and soaring successes over the course of a year.

Ms. Harman allows you to glimpse into her inner and outer life as you read about her patients. Her hopes and dreams for herself and her family along with the hopes and dreams of her patients. Struggles of motherhood and of being middle aged. Struggles with insomnia and doing the right thing when it feels as if the forces of the universe are lining up against you and your success.

The writing is amazing. You often feel as if you are sitting in the same room with Ms. Harman and her patients. You can feel the weight of the conversations, walking with the characters as they experience triumphs and unspeakable grief. Often you will feel as if you are ready poetry. Ms. Harman has the ability to bring you down into the earth where you smell the dirt and see the the first signs of spring. You will also sit with her in the darkness of a still summer night. The smell of jasmine and the sound of peepers that transports you to places beyond.

As you follow a number of patients throughout the year you will be reminded that we are struggle with the same things. Whether we are rich or poor, undereducated or have advanced degrees, married or struggling to claim our true sexual identity when we sit in the exam room we are all women with the same hope and dreams and fears. We want and need and pray for our children to be successful and yet when they slip from our hand and our grasp we question where we went wrong. When faced with a diagnosis of cancer or infertility we panic or stand stoic all the time wondering what we did to deserve this curve ball that has been thrown into our already over-scheduled stressful lives. Yet throughout the book Ms. Harman's reminds us to never give up hope. To never forget the good and all that is wonderful about about live and love and relationships.

The book is written by a woman who is a midwife in West Virginia but the reality is that the book is timeless. It is the story of women that has been told since the begining of time and a story that will continue so long as women have children and lovers and hopes and dreams. It truly is a beautiful book