Something has come into my life that has changed it forever: Spaghetti Squash. I think I’ve had it once before but the stars were not aligned then as they were the other night when I sat down to dinner. It was a simple experiment — halve and gut the squash, bake rind-up at 450 for 45 minutes, scoop out the goods, mix with wild rice and a little bit of strained tomatoes — but the results were sonic. It was, hands down, the best dinner I have eaten in months. Take it from me: for a serious world-rocking, look no further than your local produce aisle.

We’re here a week already and are just beginning to get settled in. I have one suitcase unpacked, another waiting patiently for attention and a bedroom in an impressive state of disarray. It’s easy to forget how difficult a simple task like unpacking can be when you’ve got a Yonah running around until you actually have to do it. You can place a sweater on the chair one minute and the next find it on the floor, where Yonah is making an origami swan with it. Pair that with the need to fetch him from the bathroom every few minutes and your productivity level pretty much plummets. In the meantime, I’ve taken on a part-time gig at the Chabad House doing administrative stuff that, were I doing it for some corporation, would make me want to peel my nails off one by one. However, the knowledge that I am helping the Rabbi, his wife and the Jewish community on the Cape actually leaves me with a warm, tingly feeling inside. Indeed, I do data entry with relish.

Last week Shuie and I met with Jessica from BirthMatters Midwifery Care, who spent an hour and a half giving us a rundown about the ins and outs (mostly outs) of homebirth. While we were very impressed with her and the care options she offered, the unfortunate truth is that insurance won’t cover the expenses. This is completely ludicrous for a variety of reasons, one of the most pointed of which is the fact that homebirth costs a FRACTION of what a regular hospital birth usually does. So, as much as we would love to have the baby at home, it looks like the hospital is where it’s at for us. The good news about Cape Cod Hospital is that they have 3 Certified Nurse-Midwives and a Laborist on staff who do most of the deliveries during the day. In fact, I went to my OB’s office yesterday and met with one of them, a willowy, soft-spoken woman named Jodi, to whom I voiced (pretty strongly) my desire to do a homebirth and concerns about doing the hospital go-round again. She agreed with me wholeheartedly. “You are a perfect candidate for homebirth,” she said. “Unfortunately, we’re working with a broken system.” The good thing is that the CNMs are very supportive of natural birth and are generally much more “there” for the laboring woman than the OB’s on call.

A really interesting thing happened when I walked into Jodi’s office. On the wall was a painting of two women holding babies. Around the image was written the words, “And the midwives feared Gd and did not heed the word of Pharaoh.” It was the story of Yocheved and Miriam, Moses’ mother and sister, who were the midwives of Israel in the land of Egypt. This is part of the Torah portion we read this past week. In Israel I learned more than once that the energy of the weekly parsha repeats itself every time it comes around again; I found it comforting and reassuring to bet met with it in her office. When I mentioned to Jodi that this was the week’s parsha, she nodded. “It’s the story of Passover”. When she told me her kids were named Noah and Ariel, my suspicions were confirmed: Another young Jewish mom on the Cape! I was so excited I was practically bursting to invite her family for Shabbat dinner. I held myself in check, though, seeing as I had just met her and I wasn’t sure about the whole midwife/patient thing. Who knows? With time…