Birth, Breath, and Death: A Doula's Memoir

Doulas have written groundbreaking books in recent decades, from The Birth Partner by Penny Simkin, to Debra Pascali-Bonaro's Orgasmic Birth, to my own The Doula Guide to Birth. However, I am not aware of many doulas who have written memoirs, a genre that I love, so I was particularly intrigued to read Amy Wright Glenn's new publication, Birth, Breath, and Death: Meditations on Motherhood, Chaplaincy, and Life as a Doula.  The book is a riveting spiritual autobiography, and an account of Glenn's work both as a doula and a hospital chaplain to the dying.  It is also the story of her complicated relationship with her mother, and becoming a mother herself.  She writes, "I am captivated by the study of life's thresholds. What is more mysterious than the great unknown existing beyond the frontiers of birth and death? Through the bodies of women, we are all born into time and space. Each one of us must also walk through that great, uncharted door of death."  I am grateful to Amy Wright Glenn for her permission to share the opening pages of her book with you below.  To purchase and read her book in its entirety, click here.