THE PLOWBOY INTERVIEW

Article Tools

Image Gallery

Print

E-mail

Comments

RSS

"Besides being impressed with Ms. Tompson's character and eloquence, I feel a deep sense of personal gratitude toward her . . . since the two causes she's worked publicly for have both affected my own life. (My wife and I had some initial difficulties with breastfeeding our firstborn, and with arranging a good home birth for our second.) In all, I felt myself richer for having had the chance to talk with her. "

What follows is the edited transcript of a six-hour discussion between Pat and Marian . . . held at the Jefferson, Maryland country home of Ms. Tompson's friend Patricia Victoria.

PLOWBOY: Marian, you went to a great deal of trouble to organize the Mother's Day conference of the Alternative Birth Crisis Coalition, and were even scheduled to moderate the entire day's events. Yet you were hours late to the meeting because there was a birth taking place in your own Chicago home!

TOMPSON: Yes, my daughter Laurel and her husband Jim had decided to have their baby at my house. And as fate would have it, Laurel's labor started on the Friday before the conference. Oh, she said it'd be all right if I left for Washington as I'd planned, and I really did intend to . . . but when I got up to go at four o'clock Saturday morning, I literally could not put my body outside that door. I knew then that I was more needed at home than at the conference, so I told Laurel, "I just can't go," and she said, "Oh, Mother, I'm so glad!" That was that. I stayed to help and, at 12:53 a.m. Sunday, little Austin Scott Davies was born. [EDITOR'S NOTE: The group photo on the facing page shows Marian with Austin, Laurel, and Jim Davies on the bed where the baby was born.]

PLOWBOY: That's wonderful . . . and I guess you couldn't have a better excuse for being tardy to a home birth conference. But tell me, why did your daughter choose to have her child at your house?

TOMPSON: Our family has a tradition of doing things at home. Many of the children my husband Tom and I had were born and married there . . . and when our first daughter to get pregnant — Debbi — was expecting, she and her husband decided to come to our house because they didn't regard their own residence as a permanent one. Then Melanie made the same decision when she became pregnant. And Laurel was the first baby that I had at home myself . . . so she was giving birth in the same room she was born in, and the doctor in attendance was the son of the doctor who attended her birth! I believe that these links of family continuity can give a person a lot of strength.

Of course, my daughters' decisions have absolutely delighted me. I've known many women who've been bothered by the very idea of becoming grandmothers. But let me tell you, if you're there when that baby's born, you're so thrilled that you want to stop people on the street and say, "Today I became a grandmother!"

RSS | Comments | E-mail | Print