If a woman feels safe and comfortable and supported, it's amazing what she can do.

I don't think it's very realistic to not talk. When you're really at a birth, and you can see a woman is needing some help, words tend to be a way to help.

You'd be surprised how many noises you hear from women they'd never even think would come from them. I encourage that, because it's important to get into an instinctual, primal state to really surrender to what your body needs to do.

I think every woman in their life wants to give a good face smack.

My parents are both pastors. In the '80s and '90s in the mainstream Christian world, it was not really common for a woman - especially a married woman and a mother - to be a pastor.

When I think of Emily Dickinson, there's not one particular poem of hers that jumps out, but I do have a very vivid image of an ill woman with giant eyes who wants to write about the sun exploding.