Person of Interest | Melinda Milligan, Midwife

— by Lin McNulty —

“Bittersweet” is how Melinda Milligan characterizes her upcoming retirement as a midwife after nearly 40 years of attending more than 1,000 births. “I probably should have counted,” she says now.

She grew up in California’s San Fernando Valley and obtained a degree that brought her to West Seattle as a Medical Social Worker. She and Stan Williams, M.D., moved to Orcas after hearing from a friend that a doctor was needed on the island. They went to work in the Medical Center (now The Lower Tavern) and Milligan began to discover her desire to become a midwife.

She assisted Dr. Williams in a couple of home births on Orcas where improvisation was not out of the question. A turkey baster was plucked from the kitchen during one birth, in order to suction the newborn.

Milligan began to realize her destiny as the women’s movement was gaining momentum, and a natural, unmedicated approach to labor and birth was taking root in popularity. She recalls the look in the eyes of a University Hospital attending physician after witnessing a natural birth for the first time: “that was beautiful.” Milligan doesn’t see her self as a trailblazer, however, but as an early settler in the field of midwifery and natural birth.

She enrolled in Pace University in New York to obtain both her R.N. and Masters in Nursing degrees, and the Medical University of South Carolina for her midwife training. She lived for awhile upstairs, on call, at Mount Vernon Birth Center and recalls waking up to someone pounding on the downstairs ceiling with a broom, her signal to wake up and get to work. She ran downstairs in her pajamas and delivered the baby before noticing that a young child was still pounding the ceiling with a broom; no one had told him why he had been asked to do it, or when to stop.

She opened her own practice on island in 1986 and discovered the potential problem of relying on home deliveries when living on one land mass while advanced medical services were located on another land mass. “A woman should feel protected, safe,” she recounts. Her services were recruited by Island Hospital, and that is where she had privileges for the next 22 years, only delivering on-island when absolutely necessary.

Midwives don’t normally handle multiple births. One one occasion, however, she was called in to the medical center where twins were about to be born before a medical evacuation could be completed. After delivery, she handed the babies off to the two M.D.s in attendance.

Working on call, 24/7, for 40-plus years provides a number of great stories. Milligan shared a couple of them. No deliveries on the ferry for her, but one birth in the ferry line. She recalls checking a mother-to-be on the ferry and immediately requesting the ferry return to the landing so a medevac could be carried out. Or the time she ran to attend a birth while she had been in her belly dancing class, still in veil, makeup, and costume. Or the hot tub delivery wherein her only logical solution to the situation was to get in the tub with the mom; fortunately, she says, there was a swimsuit available that she could don before the EMTs arrived.

Milligan has four second-generation births in her compendium, and attended the birth of 27 percent of the Orcas High School graduating class this year.

“It will be novel,” she surmises, “to be without a pager,” to be able to make commitments. She missed her own baby shower because of delivery. “I heard it was fun,” she says.

Retirement means a “gap year” for her as she figures out what’s next. She looks to travel, maybe to teach, perhaps to write her memoirs. She will also explore her options to offer her midwifery skills in other countries.

There is still one more baby in San Juan County remaining for Milligan to deliver, as long as s/he decides to enter the world before December 31 when Milligan’s insurance will no longer be in effect.

She loves this work; it is obvious in the way she speaks of it. She will treasure, she says, the moments she shared with women at their most vulnerable, bravest, best moment in life.

When she gets nostalgic about retiring from the work she loves, her family reminds her that once she retires, she can get a puppy. That elicits a smile.