Her home-birth battle

That’s how Holloman found herself sitting on a crate in a snow-covered field one February evening, negotiating her arms around her massive belly to milk out the ewe. As the light faded rapidly around her, her neighbors pulled up, rolled down the window, and hollered “Where’s that baby?” into the cold evening air as they drove past. They meant Holloman’s baby, not the lamb. It seemed everyone was

ready for Holloman to go into labor, including her husband, Jason Beetz, a first-time father, and Holloman herself, 41 years old and pregnant with her second child. She had spent hours in the week and a half since her due date had come and gone walking the wintry beaches of Cape Cod trying to jump-start her labor.

Later that evening, Holloman felt a rush of warm water and knew it was time. Beetz called the midwife to tell her to come down to South Dennis from Cambridge. In their home, amid the trappings of a family-to-be – the changing table, the co-sleeper, the stroller – they settled in and waited for labor to start. Holloman, like an increasing number of women in Massachusetts, had decided to deliver her baby at home, in the care of a midwife, a practice not regulated in 23 states, including this one, though some home-birth advocates here and across the country are stepping up efforts to change that. Advocates who support a bill gaining momentum in Massachusetts say that regulating midwives would improve the safety of home births, which should be an option for women and families who want them, even though the medical establishment strongly opposes the practice. And after Holloman’s home-birth experience, she has emerged as one of the bill’s most passionate, if least expected, supporters.