THE PLOWBOY INTERVIEW

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PLOWBOY: What did he mean by that?

TOMPSON: I didn't know . . . until I got to the hospital and a nurse said, "Oh, we've been waiting for you!" Every resident and intern and clerk around, you see, wanted to be there to observe this strange thing called natural childbirth. That's why there wasn't enough room for my husband.

For a while, though, they left me all alone in the delivery room. Every so often a doctor would come in and say, "Keep your knees together," or "Don't bear down." Well they'd already lowered the bottom section of the delivery table, so I'd answer, "Of course I won't bear down . . . if I did, the baby would fall right on the floor!"

I was starting to get uncomfortable, though, because I'd already reached the pushing stage . . . but my doctor had promised his office nurse that she could watch this delivery, too, so he was waiting until she'd rescheduled all his appointments and he could bring her over.

When the obstetrician finally arrived, he walked in like a victorious king entering a conquered city. The double doors to the room burst open and revealed a nurse, walking backwards as she put gloves on the doctor's outstretched hands. Behind him came a second nurse, who was tying up his gown. And following her were all those people who'd come to watch.

As the obstetrician approached the foot of the table, I said, "Doctor, they won't let me bear down, and I've got to bear down." And he said, "Marian, you can bear down now!" So I gave three pushes and — without any screaming or any tearing or a mussed hair on my head — out came my beautiful daughter Deborah. Then, as I reached out to touch her, a young intern rushed over to my physician and said, "Doctor, how did you do it?"

PLOWBOY: How did he do it? Oh, that's too much!

TOMPSON: I couldn't believe my ears!

Well, I had a third baby in the hospital, but soon thereafter I was excited to hear that Dr. Gregory White was attending births at home. My husband was a little nervous about the idea at first, so I showed him statistics from the Chicago Maternity Center, which had been sending teams out to perform home deliveries for low-income women who'd had little or no prenatal care. Those teams hadn't lost a single mother during the three years in which they'd kept records . . . and they had a lower infant mortality rate than any hospital in the city. That information clinched it for Tom.

And just watching my husband's face when we had Laurel was one of the most joyous aspects of birthing at home. He was sitting by my bed, and he was all but overwhelmed by the whole experience. When she was born, he actually said, "How did you do it?" But he was speaking to me, not to the doctor.

Afterward, when telling people about Laurel's birth, I heard him say, "Why, there was nothing to it . . . I could have taken care of it myself!" I realized then that I could never go back to a hospital to have a baby. So the rest of our children — a fifth daughter and two sons — were born at home, too.

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