"Leylee Rose Botkin"
born 9-23-97 to Jannie Morton and Danny Botkin
On Sept 23, 1997, our daughter Leylee was born... and our lives changed forever. We had hoped for a home birth in our hilltop sanctuary at Grassy Hill, but ended up gratefully laboring with the best of western and "New Age" medicine to shepherd Leylee through. She needed some precautionary suctioning at birth, but her strong heart and the sound of our voices called her surely into life. Jannie was heroic! (all women who labor are...) and has begun to bounce back from what was truly a difficult and unusual birth. Needless to say, we are both ecstatic. Take a peek at this vibrating little spirit!
Now, we are back home, bathing in love and gratitude for having birthed a healthy child. We think constantly of our friends nearby who had a traumatic birth in August and their struggle to care for their brain injured baby, Noah. There but for fortune... 
Near our home, along a quiet road where we walked daily during the pregnancy, is a beautiful, old New England cemetery with graves dating back to the 1700's. I often go there to stretch or rest and I wonder about the stories, especially the graves of young women, 28, 19, 37 years old, often as not with a tiny stone adjacent marked, "infant son" or "infant daughter". I get to thinking about all the women who've ever given birth, under all kinds of circumstances. It's intense what women go through to bring life into this world! Those early Americans did their best with what was available. But what gets me is that modern women on every continent are still forced to conceive and give birth under highly unfavorable conditions, as refugees, in poverty, unattended or unsafe. Why has my dear friend Teresa in Guatemala been pregnant, against her will, every year of her adult life, at great hazard to her health? This is 1997, after all!
Jannie and I wish to thank all the special people who supported and guided us through this amazing birth adventure including our wonderful lay midwives, Terri Nash and Jharna Morrissey; our amazing nurse midwife, Judy Brock; our dear friend, massage therapist, coach and birth attendant, Beth Spong; two angelic attending nurses, Brenda Strysko and Grace Ferrante; a skilled and gentle anesthesiologist, Dr. Chernock; pediatrician, Dr. Hickman and a courageous and committed obstetrician, Dr. Walter Glaser.
Our experience renewed our faith in doctors and hospitals. Thank you one and all!
We are also very grateful for the warmth and caring support we've received from our dear friends and family, Jannie's women's group, Daniel's men's group and an unusal circle of seven pregnant (and now parenting) women who travelled this sacred path together, sharing the joys, the pains and the wonderment of pregnancy and birth.
And finally, we are so grateful to our little smidget rosebud, Leylee, who chose somehow to come through us to shine her light in this world.
With love and awe, Danny and Jannie
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