About Carol
Carol Leonard, a "foremother of the modern midwifery movement," is a New Hampshire certified midwife who has been practicing for the last three decades. She is co-founder of the Midwives Alliance of North America (MANA), which represents all midwives in the United States, Canada, and Mexico, and served one term as its president. Her work to improve maternity care in Moscow, Russia, was featured on 20/20 and was written into the Congressional Record. She is currently building a four-hundred-acre farm in Ellsworth, Maine, named Bad Beaver Farm.
Carol can be reached at Carol@badbeaverfarm.com.
9/22/08 ~ A new story! How Tom and Carol got together...
How We Met
I used to garden naked when I thought I was unobserved. In my late 20’s and my 30’s, I lived in a funky little farmhouse in
Across the street from our house was a sizeable French Canadian family with a passel of rowdy adolescent boys. The youngest of the boys became my “handy boy”, little Tommy would do chores around our house when he was eleven. He would mow the lawn and stack the firewood and trim branches because my husband was away at the hospital a great deal of the time. Tommy was an adorable, sweet boy with very blond hair and bright blue eyes and freckles.
My beloved husband died suddenly when I was in my late 30’s and I was bereft. I had a bigger farm then, fields and vegetable gardens in Hopkinton. Tom was in his late teens then, and he came back to help me with the upkeep of the farm. He plowed the gardens and mowed the fields and felled trees for firewood. He was always courteous and sweet. He used to arrive at the farm on a tri-cycle motorcycle he had built out of an old VW bug with a chopper front.
One day Tom asked me if I would go with him to the Loudon motorcycle races. This surprised me, but I declined him saying I was a grieving widow and didn’t think it would be appropriate. Besides, I couldn’t really picture myself riding on the back of a home-made chopper with a boy half my age. Not after what I’d been through.
Tom told me he was going away to the
In my mid-40’s, I decided to end a long, self-imposed sentence of celibacy (well, long for me anyway.) As soon as I made that decision, men started coming around like moths to a candle (amazing how that happens…must be pheromones.) There were three men; one was probably, in retrospect, a serial killer, one was a crazy, very screwed up artist and one was a wealthy insurance company president who had a summer home on the ocean near mine in
The CEO was supposed to pick me up with his yacht at my little cottage in
At this moment, a beat-up black pick-up truck pulled into my driveway. A gorgeous blond, bearded man stepped out. I stood frozen in my tracks. I said, “Tommy?” He grinned that beautiful smile that I would recognize anywhere. Tears sprang to my eyes, how wonderful to see him again! As we hugged, I noticed he was wearing the ankh.
We picked mussels from the shore and cooked them in garlic and wine and sat in the wind on the beach eating them. Tom looked at me with those ridiculously soulful blue eyes and he said, “I’ve been in love with you since I was eleven. Is it safe to love you now?”
My own eyes widened in realization of what was about to happen.
I said, “Good timing, Mr. Lajoie.”
Postscript: Carol Leonard and Tom Lajoie have been together for 13 years, married for three.
Carol is available for book signings, lectures and workshops. She can be reached at ~
Carol Leonard, NHCM, 585 Hopkinton Road, Hopkinton, NH 03229, 603-224-4596
UPCOMING EVENTS~
~ Monday, 8/25/08. Carol was on NH Public Radio on The Exchange with Laura Knoy, discussing Midwifery in NH. It was a fabulous show and can be heard anytime at www.NHPR.org, click on The Exchange, then on Midwives Today.
Carol Leonard, a New Hampshire midwife and a founder of Midwives Alliance of North America (MANA) will present a reading from her book Lady's Hands, Lion's Heart: A Midwife's Saga in the Sophia Smith Collection, Alumnae Gymnasium, on Friday, Nov. 7, at 7 p.m.
For the First Annual Mothers Naturally Award ~ As a MANA member and a NH licensed midwife, I nominate the book Lady's Hands, Lion's Heart, A Midwife's Saga by Carol Leonard.
I feel this book definitely demonstrates excellence in the portrayal of childbirth and midwifery. I believe Carol's way of writing draws you in and puts you in her shoes, no holds bared. Her book has every part of midwifery in it from those precious moments treasured between sister midwives, to the legislation, to the devotion of life that must be given for the women we serve. Carol is also a past president of MANA and also a life time member of MANA as well as a life time member of our state organization NHMA, and our faithful and devoted lobbyist. She has done so much for midwifery and childbirth in our state and nationally her book is sure to send a ripple across the country as it finds it's way
into the hands of women desiring to know the hands and heart experience of a midwife in this day and age.
Thank you for the opportunity to nominate a book worthy of such recognition.
In the time honored tradition of midwifery, Carol Leonard's birth
stories are an effective teaching tool for beginning and student
midwives alike and make experienced midwives feel right at home. The reader
comes away with a clear understanding of the practice and philosophy
of holistic midwifery and out of hospital birthing. ~CPM in NC
Lady's Hands, Lion's Heart ~ A Midwife's Saga
By Carol Leonard
ISBN: 978-0-615-19550-6
$15.00
