Aussie Midwives
Fiona McArthur
This collection of stories about Australian midwives couldn’t come at a better time than for Mother’s Day. The role of midwives in looking after mothers from conception to birth and beyond is something that should be inherently built into society. This non-fiction work unpacks some of the roles of midwives around Australia.
For me, this had a lot of backstory of each of the midwives so that you got a good feeling for who they were as people, as well as within their jobs. I would have loved to have more about the actual mothers and children. Every birth story is different, and I have a strange fascination with reading about them.
It’s fascinating how many different midwifery roles there are – in a plane, a tiny fishing shack or somewhere else remote. That’s the wonder of working in Australia – there’s always some odd place that a nurse or midwife will find herself going.
All of this was very birth positive, and trying to put women back in control of their bodies. After all, birth is a process which has been taking place for years without medical intervention. Midwives are there to put the brakes on obstetricians that want to force a baby – even if that shouldn’t be their role.
I don’t know whether I can give this stars. It’s non-fiction, and its very enjoyable. It will leave people smiling. That being said, I have a feeling it is more written for women than men. That was such a sexist thing for me to say, but I don’t think most men are comfortable thinking about child-birth, as evidenced by the number of fainting husbands there were in this novel!
Some lines were truly funny, and required sharing with my partner, my workmates, the wider world! But others were thought-provoking and hard to take in. It reminded me in some way of 
I could hardly put this novel down, which was surprising because its basically a memoir. I’ve never heard of her though, so it was all new to me. I did enjoy the ‘journey’ right from the beginning of her life.
Most of us want to hope that we won’t fall for a Con. Who would get into a pyramid scheme? Hell, I was almost pulled into one as a kid, but it didn’t work in Australia because we don’t have $1 notes to post. The deal was that you post $1 to each person on the list, then you add your name to the bottom of the list. Then the more people you send it to, the more you make back. Now it costs a $1 to send the damn letter, so you wouldn’t even break even!
This was impressive because Petraitis had obviously done her work well (as she has in her other books, which I now want to get my hands on), and she places the emphasis on the human touch. Humans are fallible, and criminal ones even more so. The book also highlighted the impact on police officers’ family lives in the days after a crime.
It could be quite a heavy book but Lal makes an effort to keep the action moving and to always have a bit of humour. If not, there was a profound insight being shared, or expanded upon. I particularly enjoyed the notes from her brother’s journal.
I’ve never really thought about prison settings, not since my review of 
I’m not quite sure what I expected out of this book. I guess I was hoping for some general money rules that could apply globally. There are some here, but don’t be mistaken – this is a very American based set of suggestions.