The whole family showed up on my doorstep an hour before the siren marking the eve of Yom Hazikaron (Remembrance Day). The woman's labor started before the second siren the next day. I brought books and toys for the children to play with while she meandered outside getting to know the Derech Avot area behind my house. She kept in touch with her midwife, but progress was slow.

On the morning of Yom Ha’atzmaut I walked downstairs to check up on our guests. I hadn't been aware of any change, so I was only expecting a status quo report. I was surprised when I found her husband and six children standing around the bed in a semicircle gazing proudly at the sleeping infant in her arms. She was comfortably propped up on pillows and looked tired, yet deeply satisfied that she had been able to give birth to her baby safely on her own terms. Her baby was born in the quiet of the night, long after the last traces of fireworks celebrating Yom Ha'atzmaut had faded away. So quietly that none of us had woken up. What a wonderful present her children had awoken to the next day. So perfect, so beautiful in its natural simplicity. The inner and outer strength of this woman defied logic.

Meet the O'Donovan family – Naomi, Seamus (pronounced Shamus, Irish for Yaacov) and their six young children – who had come to Alon Shvut to consult with Judy, the midwife, who had agreed to assist them in a home birth. There had been a slight complication though. They had needed a home in which to give birth since they had left theirs behind in Ireland in order to come to Israel.

Naomi explained:

"It's a shame that the very choice we have of where we give birth, how natural we want it to be, with less intervention used, is being stripped of us. Friends and family ask me, 'why don’t you just go to the hospital'? To me that is like asking Rosa Parks to move to the back of the bus. This is a matter of principle. I want the freedom to choose where I give birth, to have a midwife present and not to have all the interventions that are so forcibly put upon us when we go to the hospital. I don't want to spend the time during the labor fighting with nurses and doctors about my philosophy and what I want to go through during the birth. And so for me, home births have been the best option. And when it was taken from us in Ireland and they said, 'you've had more than five children so you no longer have this freedom', we decided to take matters into our own hands and we began researching where we could go to have our home birth, and everything opened up to come to Israel, so that's what we decided to do. This was a huge journey for our family, but it was one we would definitely do again."

Just what did their journey entail and how did they end up in my house?

Their journey started in their isolated Jewish bubble in southern Ireland near a town called Cork, a few miles from the ocean shore. Naomi and Seamus live on an acre of land in their refurbished farmhouse, and home-school their six young children – an eight-year -old girl, seven-year-old twin girls, a five-year-old boy, a three-year-old boy and a girl who is almost two. Although detached from any kind of Jewish community, Naomi commented, "We want to instill in our children that Judaism is for their good, that the mitzvot are holistic and touch on all areas of our lives, every day of the week."

Naomi had home-birthed all six of her children and was determined to home-birth her seventh. But despite her good health and low risk of complications, authorities in Ireland took that choice away from her. If Ireland wouldn't allow their baby to be born in its own home, then Naomi decided to find a home in Israel, the closest country that offered the best home-birthing services and necessary documentation. She had never been to Israel before and planned to combine a tour of the country with the birth.

They researched midwives in Israel and connected with Judy from Alon Shvut.

The next step was to buy a large, blue, used van, fill it with a family-size two-door tent and various other camping supplies. On April 6 they crossed the Irish Sea on a ferry, then drove through France, Switzerland and Italy, camping along the way. They turned their journey into a traveling school, teaching their children about history, geography, culture and more as their big blue van brought them closer to Israel.

From Italy they took a boat with brief stops in Greece and Turkey before coming into Israel where they disembarked at Ashdod. After several hours of being stuck in portside paper-work, they were finally released to drive to their first destination in Israel. They felt the pull to Jerusalem, to the Old City, to the Western Wall. As they experienced the feel of walking on Jerusalem stone for the first time, an old Jerusalem-born woman appeared beside them and greeted them with blessings. After their visit to the Western Wall they concluded their first day in Israel with a felafel dinner.

Their second stop was to the highest point in Park Britannica in a forest outside Beit Shemesh, where they continued their camping-on-the-road tradition and set up tents, exploring Jerusalem and historical trails by day. They walked with excitement through the hills and valley where David had fought Goliath, making the Tanach come alive for their kids.

As Naomi's due date loomed closer, Judy approached me and asked if I was willing to rent out my ground floor to this nice Jewish-Irish family in need of a place to give birth. My first thought was that I really didn't have enough space for a family of eight.  

Their second stop was to the highest point in Park Britannica in a forest outside Beit Shemesh, where they continued their camping-on-the-road tradition and set up tents, exploring Jerusalem and historical trails by day. They walked with excitement through the hills and valley where David had fought Goliath, making the Tanach come alive for their kids.

As Naomi's due date loomed closer, Judy approached me and asked if I was willing to rent out my ground floor to this nice Jewish-Irish family in need of a place to give birth. My first thought was that I really didn't have enough space for a family of eight. Our ground floor is only 60 square squaremeters, and my teenage son uses one of the three rooms. But another thought rode over the first: two healthy babies – my youngest and my nephew - had already been born downstairs. What an honor to have a third birth in my home!

I invited them to come, look and decide for themselves. The O'Donovan family came, looked over the space, and decided for lack of other options to move in. After all that car-driving and tent-living, my small space with the large bathroom and hot showers must have looked attractive. Once I had made the offer (how could I miss an

opportunity to get to know such an adventurous, interesting family) and once they had accepted, my own kids chipped in to make their stay as comfortable as possible. Even after Naomi's mother had flown in from the States to help with the new baby and visit with the rest of the grandkids, the small space seemed to expand to fit them all in.

The baby was born on Yom Ha'atzmaut with the help of Judy, the professional, well-prepared midwife. Eight days later we held the brit milah in our house and learned the name they had chosen for their sabra son: Boaz Alon Zacharia. All three names reflect the area - the Judean Hills - where this very special baby was born.

Ironically, just days after their home birth delivery in my house, the Israeli Ministry of Health deliberated over new protocols that would restrict a woman's choice in having a home birth. Strict regulations against a home birth in Ireland forced this family to come here rather than to an overcrowded hospital. Is Israel heading in the same direction? I pray not.

Just the mention of home births can bring out passionate responses on both sides of the issue. Some people may argue that it is more safely sane to stay in Ireland and give birth to a seventh child in a hospital, (even if it is set up to handle 6,000 births a year, but in reality must handle in excess of 9,000 births) rather than to bring a whole family on a long trek across two seas and all of Europe in order to give birth in the home of a stranger, or that perhaps the Israeli Ministry of Health should require women who choose home births to get a psychiatric evaluation. Well, perhaps I've just gotten used to their highly unusual story, but I find their sanity highly grounded. They give new meaning to the phrase "going out of their way", in order to uphold a treasured value.

I am one who believes in Divine Providence, and from their story and Naomi's remark that everything opened up for them to come to Israel, it is clear to me that G-d brought them out of their isolated community in southern Ireland to Israel and Gush Etzion, to expose them to all the benefits of living within a strong Jewish community. Not only did they bring another Jewish soul into the world here in Eretz Yisrael, but they also experienced the fireworks celebrating Yom Ha'atzmaut, the fires of Lag B'Omer, the feeling of community around Shabbat meals and the beauty of this country during more camping trips up north.

Irish bureaucracy pushes Israel into the category of the bureaucratic Iron Man championships of serving, processing and delivering. However, the initial prediction of a two-month wait to receive their baby's Irish passport was in fact cut to three weeks, which meant they could catch the boat to Naples right after Shavuot. Still a delay, but then how could the O'Donovan family, especially Naomi with her new baby Boaz, miss the chance to be in Israel, in the Judean Hills, for Shavuot?

Naomi and Seamus agreed that God was with them through this journey, that they were guided through all obstacles.

I feel so blessed to have been part of their journey. Perhaps I'll see them again for an eighth birth?