Your Catholic Neighbor: Karen Maschue
Helping mothers give birth at home
By Joyce Coronel, The Catholic Sun
August 2, 2007
Karen Maschue believes women are capable of a lot more than they’ve been led to believe.
The 43-year-old St. Thomas the Apostle parishioner is a nurse and midwife who founded St. Raymond’s Home Birthing as an alternative for women to be able to give birth in a more natural setting.
A life-long Catholic, Maschue became a Licensed Practical Nurse in a dual enrollment program during her high school years at St. Mary’s. By graduation, all her friends had secured jobs, but Maschue still hadn’t decided what kind of nurse she wanted to be. Discouraged, she turned to her mother.
“My mom said, ‘Why don’t you go to evening Mass and ask God for a good job?’”
She took her mom’s advice and just before the liturgy began, a woman sitting beside her in the pew offered her a position in the postpartum recovery room at a local hospital.
“I knew it was over my head, but I said yes,” Maschue said. She developed a desire to work in labor and delivery but was told the chances were slim. There was a waiting list of candidates and LPNs weren’t even considered.
“There are no accidents in God’s economy,” she laughed. “He moved me around like a checker piece on a checker board.”
Maschue spent 20 years working as an OB nurse in various capacities and enjoyed a stint in the newborn nursery.
It was during the years she helped women in labor that she discovered a yearning to serve them with a more holistic approach.
“I would see women’s hopes dashed. They planned on a safe, healthy, vaginal delivery and they had to experience a major surgery,” she said of the many caesarean section deliveries she witnessed. She also hated to see women given only ice chips during labor.
“Every woman is just given liquids because she’s a potential c-section. It seems unfair — it marks every woman as a problem and puts her behind the eight ball with no energy and puts her baby in danger with no nutrients.”
Maschue said she no longer “wanted to be part of a system that was doing this to women,” and decided to become a midwife.
On a recent summer afternoon, Maschue measured sister-in-law Amy’s mid-section.
“You’re 29 weeks,” she said as two of the pregnant woman’s younger children looked on, eager to help. Thomas, 5, spread some of the aloe vera gel on his mother’s belly so they could all hear the unborn baby’s heartbeat with the midwife’s fetal heart detector.
“Hear that swish-swish sound? That’s the baby’s umbilical cord,” Maschue told the youngsters, clearly captivated by it all.
She’s attended 42 home deliveries so far.
Maschue named her practice “St. Raymond’s Home Birthing” because of the saint’s reputation as an intercessor for midwives and expectant mothers.
“I’ve always had a strong belief in the communion of the saints,” she said, adding that she’s prayed for his intercession at deliveries on many occasions.
On Aug. 31, St. Raymond’s feast day, Maschue is sponsoring a Mass at St. Thomas the Apostle Church at 5:30 p.m. for midwives and pregnant mothers. The Mass will be followed by dinner in the hall.
Are you active in any ministries?
I’m a long-time pro-life activist. I did sidewalk counseling [attempting to dissuade women from abortions] for 23 years.
What do you like most about being Catholic?
I love the unbroken line of succession. I love the fact that my Catholicism goes back to the early Church fathers. It’s the enduring nature of the Church that I love.
What do you enjoy most about your job?
Midwifery lets women know that God has never left them bereft of their abilities. It’s the restoration of helping women give birth on their terms that keeps me motivated. I love the high I get when a woman feels victorious.
If you could meet one person, living or dead, who would it be?
I have many heroes — St. Maximilian Kolbe is one. I admire his gentle spirit in the heat of man’s inhumanity to man. How do you keep a gentle spirit? That’s a challenge for all of us. I also think of Pope John Paul II — what a hero.
