Ten Month Mamas

• Proud Mama Apple Tree, letting her babies grow

"Babies really need to 'ripen' in their own way - regardless of whether that fits an arbitrary timetable or not.

"Imagine a tree filled with apples. Now we all know that some apples ripen early, many at the same time, some much later - we all know about how one apple will just stay on the tree for days and days- even weeks- after all the others have fallen off. I have personally waited for apples like that - and gently shaking the tree has no effect on getting them to come off. Whacking the apple with a stick would make it fall off... but the apple would not be at its most delectable. So - I wait, and my reward is a sweet, big, juicy apple. "Well hitting the apple to get it off before its ripe time is like inducing a baby because of 'postdates' - making it be born just because other babies mature earlier. And I would rather get hit as a baby than be made to be born before my time, before my systems and brain have 'ripened' to what they need to be for my own optimal health and wellbeing. Induction is a grave insult to the baby.

"My own babies are like those apples that take so long to come off. I wait and I wait - and when the time is right, my babies come down to me - as perfect as their internal schedules dictate they should be. And, writing this in my tenth month of my tenth pregnancy, I'm proud to be that strong, healthy mama apple tree- and I will nourish my newest baby as long as he or she needs." - Leilah McCracken, March, 2002

• Lovely blossoms open when they're ready

"Attending births is like growing roses. You have to marvel at the ones that just open up and bloom at the first kiss of the sun, but you wouldn't dream of pulling open the petals of the tightly closed buds, and forcing them to blossom to your time line. " -Gloria Lemay

• God Knows Babies

"I've come to realize that a God who is big enough to so perfectly form little eyes and ears and a little round nose and a heart and lungs and every single part of a little person is certainly big enough to work out the details of their coming into the world." -Vicki