A practicing certified nurse-midwife in New York for more than a dozen years, Muhlhahn has the battle scars to prove it, in the form of piles of paid and unpaid parking tickets as well as enough emotional dings to give her plain-speaking single mom's memoir an edge. Not the stereotypical Birkenstock-shod, granola-munching earth mother, she has nonetheless always unapologetically marched to the beat of her own drummer. From the moment she decided a life of service was her destiny, she never looked back. A series of life events seemed to send her headlong into midwifery, often in the face of harsh disapproval from many in the mainstream American medical arena. She stood her ground and demanded her propers as someone who empowers women during the crucial process of giving birth-and she was featured in Ricki Lake's documentary The Business of Being Born. Although midwifery is beginning to enjoy greater mainstream medical approval, Muhlhahn still wants more, especially special license plates to avert all those pesky parking tickets.
