"Chance is the strangest word in the world, isn't it? One syllable, six letters. It's a noun, it's a verb. Change one letter and it's an adjective. And everything about it scares the bejesus out of so many people; it's the thing they try to avoid at all costs.  (147) The book "Midwives  is a novel written by Chris Bohjalian. He wrote this book in memory of his mother, Annalee Nelson Bohjalian, who died in 1995. This book is about a midwife who performed an emergency cesarean section on a woman who she thought was dead. She is now facing the law as they believe the woman was still alive and she killed her. Sibyl Danforth is an ex-hippie who fell in love with the birthing process when she stepped forward to help her pregnant friend give birth. After the birth, Sibyl dedicated herself to be a lay midwife. Sibyl never worried about obtaining any type of medical license or schooling before doing so. Friends, neighbors, and people from all around still trusted her to help them deliver their children at home. Sibyl Danforth's story is told by her daughter Connie and it all starts in 1981 when a minister's wife, Charlotte Bedford, calls upon Sibyl to be her midwife. Charlotte Bedford had already had one child, Foogie, who was also delivered by Sibyl. This birth turned out to be a lot harder than the last. Charlotte pushed and pushed for many hours and started having excessive bleeding. Sibyl was ready to send her to the hospital, but they had not noticed the terrible weather outside had messed up phone lines, so they could not call an ambulance. Sibyl tried going to her car and pulling it close to the house and was going to drive her herself, but she fell and stumbled all the way to the car hurting her ankle and scratching up her arms and legs. Her car would not move at all it was completely stuck! She went back in the house and Charlotte was ready to push again. She kept pushing until her eyes rolled in the back of her head and they thoug