Abigail Graber is a wife and mother who serves as a midwife assistant to her Amish community. On the night that Ruth Fisher goes into labor there is no certified midwife available and the doctor is assisting at an accident scene some distance away. After determining that Ruth is in serious condition and an ambulance is called, Abigail makes a decision that she will soon regret. She injects Ruth with a medication that she should not have had nor administered. Abigail makes no effort to hide what she has done and tells both the EMT's and the police officers that she had injected the medication in an effort to save Ruth's life.
Soon Abigail is arrested and due to the fact that she will not reveal the name of the person who supplied her with the medication, she is sent to jail. A high bail is set and now her husband Daniel must decide what to do, mortgage the farm or let Abigail continue to sit in jail. Daniel and Abigail struggle through out the book as they try to determine what is best to do for their family.

Catherine Yost (Abigail"s sister) comes to care for Daniel and the 2 children. Soon though she learns about Isaiah, Daniel's cousin who lives in a secluded portion of the property. Catherine soon determines that Isaiah is deaf and she tries to find ways to help him learn and to be comfortable in social situations.

The author also lets us see how Nathan Fisher struggles after the death of his wife and his detachment from his newborn son. It was hard to read about his trials but also encouraging to read about his growth as he reaches outside himself.

There are 3 separate story lines in this book but they are all linked together. The author does a very good job of keeping each story separate and yet together because of the common link they share - Abigail.

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Abigail is an Amish midwife and in the state she lived in Amish midwives are unlicensed. She is called to do a home birth and she normally works with a doctor MD but the doctor wasn't able to come. She showed up there at the last minute an emergency and delivered the baby and the woman died, but it wasn't from her negligence that the woman died. The woman had been told. She should never have any children and the woman told Abigail when she delivered the baby she knew she was going to die when she delivered the baby but she wanted an Amish midwife there with her, and Abigail had some Pitocin, which is a prescription drug that she administered to the woman, Abigail was arrested for doing the homebirth alone and for administering the Pitocin, and for the woman dying. She goes to jail in the story is about how her and her family coped when she was charged, going to jail what happened with her
family when she was in jail and what happened with her in jail A very interesting book I have never read an Amish book like this.

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