New Life Birth Services

05/12/2026

In a world full of action heroes, Budapest chose to honor the gentle giant who made them laugh—and believe in true friendship. His statue stands 2.4 meters tall, just like the legend.
In a quiet corner of Budapest's Corvin sétány, a bronze figure stands larger than life.
Not of a national hero. Not of a political figure.
But of a brawny, bearded man who once lit up cinema screens with belly laughs and flying fists.
That man is Bud Spencer—the Italian actor born Carlo Pedersoli—immortalized in 2017 with a 240-centimeter statue that celebrates not just his film career, but the joy he brought to Hungarian audiences during a time when joy wasn't so easy to find.
The Man Who Became a Legend
Carlo Pedersoli was born on October 31, 1929, in Naples, Italy.
Before he became Bud Spencer—before he became a movie star—he was an Olympic athlete.
He competed as a swimmer at the 1952 Helsinki Olympics and the 1956 Melbourne Olympics, reaching the semi-finals in the 100-meter freestyle both times.
He was a water polo champion, winning the Italian Championship in 1954 and a gold medal at the 1955 Mediterranean Games.
He was the first Italian to swim 100 meters freestyle in under one minute.
He earned a law degree. Became a commercial airline and helicopter pilot. Registered multiple patents.
But in 1967, everything changed.
Film director Giuseppe Colizzi offered Carlo a role in God Forgives... I Don't!
On set, he met Mario Girotti—who would become Terence Hill.
The director thought their Italian names sounded wrong for a Western movie.
Carlo needed a new name.
He chose "Bud" from Budweiser beer—his favorite.
And "Spencer" from actor Spencer Tracy—his hero.
Bud Spencer was born.
The Partnership That Changed Comedy
Bud Spencer and Terence Hill made 18 films together.
Spaghetti Westerns. Action comedies. Crime capers in exotic locations.
Their formula was simple but electric:
Terence played the quick, agile, charming one.
Bud played the grumpy, slow-moving strongman with a heart of gold.
Together, they developed a unique fighting style—Terence delivered rapid punches while Bud knocked people out with single, devastating blows.
Their most famous move? The "piccione" (pigeon) punch—where the victim lifted one leg before falling, inspired by how a bird topples over.
The fights were slapstick. Harmless. Cartoonish.
Nobody really got hurt. Good always won. Friends stuck together.
And somehow, that simple formula became beloved across Europe, Asia, and South America.
But nowhere more than Hungary.
Behind the Iron Curtain
During Hungary's communist era, Western films were a rarity.
Cinema was strictly censored. Foreign content carefully controlled.
The regime decided what Hungarians could watch—and most Western entertainment was considered dangerous propaganda.
Yet somehow, Bud Spencer and Terence Hill's films broke through.
Their slapstick action comedies—full of harmless brawls, brotherly loyalty, and mischievous charm—became staples on Hungarian television.
They Call Me Trinity. Trinity Is Still My Name. Crime Busters. Watch Out, We're Mad.
While others saw cowboy hats and bar fights, Hungarians saw something deeper.
Camaraderie. Justice served with humor. Rebellion against authority—but served with a smile and a solid right hook.
In a world where freedom was restricted and state propaganda dominated, Bud and Terence offered escape.
Their films showed friendship that couldn't be broken. Loyalty that couldn't be bought. Good guys who always won—not through violence, but through cleverness, heart, and a well-timed punch.
For Hungarian families, watching Bud Spencer movies became a ritual.
Generations grew up on his films.
Children laughed at the fights. Adults appreciated the subtext.
And everyone loved the simple message: stick with your friends, stand up for what's right, and never take life too seriously.
When the Gentle Giant Died
On June 27, 2016, Carlo Pedersoli died peacefully in Rome.
He was 86 years old.
His son Giuseppe said his father "died without pain in the presence of his family, and his last word was 'grazie'"—thank you.
He was given a funeral in Rome, attended by thousands.
And Terence Hill—his friend and partner for nearly 50 years—gave the eulogy.
"Bud always used to say," Terence told the mourners, "'Mi sohasem veszekedtünk.'"
We never argued.
In 18 films together. Decades of friendship. Countless hours on set.
They never fought.
That line—simple, profound—captured everything their partnership represented.
Budapest Says Thank You
In Hungary, Bud Spencer's death hit hard.
He wasn't just a foreign actor. He was part of Hungarian childhood. Part of family memories.
Sculptor Szandra Tasnádi decided to do something about it.
She created a statue—not a bust, but a full-body bronze figure, 2.4 meters tall and weighing over 500 kilograms.
It showed Bud exactly as Hungarians remembered him: with a saddle slung over his shoulder, the iconic image from They Call Me Trinity 2.
Tasnádi offered the statue as a gift to Budapest.
The city accepted.
And on November 11, 2017—one year and four months after Bud Spencer's death—the statue was unveiled on the Corvin sétány, right next to Corvin Plaza.
Bud's daughter, Cristiana Pedersoli, attended the ceremony.
She cried.
So did the sculptor.
So did many in the crowd—fans of all ages, from elderly people who'd watched Bud's films during communism to young parents introducing his movies to their children.
The Inscription
On the statue's pedestal, they carved Terence Hill's words:
"Mi sohasem veszekedtünk."
We never argued.
It wasn't just about Bud and Terence.
It was about what their films represented.
Friendship without conflict. Loyalty without drama. Partnership built on respect, not ego.
In a world increasingly divided—politically, culturally, ideologically—that simple phrase felt radical.
We never argued.
Not because they agreed on everything.
But because their bond was stronger than disagreement.
Why Budapest?
People sometimes ask: Why does Budapest have a statue of an Italian actor?
The answer is simple.
Bud Spencer gave Hungarians something precious during a dark time.
Laughter. Escape. Hope.
His films reminded people—during an era when the government controlled nearly everything—that joy couldn't be censored.
That friendship mattered more than politics.
That sometimes, a good punch and a better heart could win the day.
Mate Kocsis, a local official, said it best at the unveiling:
"He was a unifier. He created a community through laughter and joy."
Not through speeches. Not through propaganda.
Through silly bar fights and loyal friendships on screen.
The Statue Today
Today, the bronze Bud Spencer stands on Corvin sétány, surrounded by cafes, restaurants, and bars.
Passersby stop. Smile. Take photos.
Tourists ask who he is—and locals eagerly explain.
Hungarian children who've never lived under communism still watch his movies on TV.
Parents introduce their kids to the films they loved.
And everyone who visits the statue feels it: this isn't just about an actor.
It's about what he represented.
Terence Hill himself visited the statue in person after it was unveiled.
He stood beside the bronze version of his old friend and smiled.
Fifty years of friendship. Eighteen films. Millions of laughs.
And now, a permanent monument in a city that never forgot what Bud Spencer gave them.
What the Statue Teaches Us
The Bud Spencer statue isn't about fame.
It's about impact.
Bud Spencer was never considered a "serious" actor. His films weren't critically acclaimed masterpieces.
But they touched millions of lives.
They made people laugh during hard times.
They showed friendship that endured.
They proved that you don't need darkness and complexity to tell meaningful stories.
Sometimes, a simple tale of two friends punching bad guys and protecting the innocent is exactly what the world needs.
The Power of Joy
In a world obsessed with gritty realism and dark antiheroes, Bud Spencer's films offered something increasingly rare:
Pure, uncomplicated joy.
His characters were never conflicted. Never morally ambiguous.
They were good guys who did good things.
They protected the weak. Stood by their friends. Served justice with a smile.
And somehow, that simplicity—that refusal to be cynical—made them immortal.
True Strength
"True strength doesn't need to shout," sculptor Szandra Tasnádi said about her creation. "Sometimes, it just laughs, loves, and leaves a legacy carved in bronze and memory."
Bud Spencer was physically imposing—broad-shouldered, barrel-chested, with fists like hammers.
But his real strength wasn't physical.
It was his warmth. His humor. His ability to make people feel good.
He could have played villains. Intimidating tough guys. Serious dramatic roles.
Instead, he chose to make people laugh.
And that choice—to use his presence for joy rather than fear—is why a statue of him stands in Budapest today.
The Friendship That Never Ended
Mi sohasem veszekedtünk.
We never argued.
That phrase is carved in stone beneath Bud Spencer's bronze feet.
A reminder that some friendships transcend ego, competition, and conflict.
Bud Spencer and Terence Hill worked together for decades.
They were both stars. Both had egos. Both had opinions.
But they never let disagreement poison their partnership.
They respected each other. Supported each other. Lifted each other up.
And that friendship—captured in 18 films and immortalized in bronze—is perhaps Bud Spencer's greatest legacy.
The Gentle Giant
Bud Spencer played tough guys.
But everyone who knew him described the same thing: kindness.
He funded children's charities through the Spencer Scholarship Fund.
He supported young athletes.
He remained married to his wife Maria for 56 years, until his death.
He was a devoted father to his children—Giuseppe and Cristiana.
Off-screen, Bud Spencer was exactly who he appeared to be on-screen:
A gentle giant who used his strength to protect, not intimidate.
Why It Still Matters
Bud Spencer died in 2016.
But his statue in Budapest—and the love Hungarians still have for him—proves something important:
Kindness endures.
Joy matters.
And sometimes, the heroes we need aren't the darkest or most complex.
Sometimes, they're the ones who make us laugh, believe in friendship, and remember that good can win—if it has the guts to throw the first punch.
The Last Word
On June 27, 2016, as Carlo Pedersoli lay dying surrounded by his family, he spoke one final word:
"Grazie."
Thank you.
Thank you for the life he'd lived. The love he'd received. The joy he'd given.
And if Bud Spencer could see his statue in Budapest today—surrounded by smiling faces, photographed by tourists, loved by generations—he'd probably say it again.
Grazie.
Because in the end, that's what his life was about.
Not fame. Not fortune.
But gratitude—for the chance to make people happy.
And Budapest's answer, carved in bronze on Corvin sétány, will stand forever:
No, Bud. Thank you.
For the laughs. For the loyalty. For showing us that strength and gentleness aren't opposites.
And for reminding us—in 18 films and one unforgettable friendship—that we're all better when we face the world together.
Mi sohasem veszekedtünk.
We never argued.
That's the whole story.
A gentle giant who made millions laugh.
A friendship that never broke.
And a city that never forgot.

05/12/2026

"Maybe baby" is 10/10

05/10/2026

"She carried him for eleven days after he died. Not away from the pack. Not into hiding. She carried him with the pack — through their territory, through their hunts, through the snow. The other wolves moved around her. They did not try to take him from her. They did not push her to put him down. They simply moved around her, and gave her the space that grief requires, and kept moving. She was a grey wolf in the Northern Rocky Mountains, designated F-779 by the Yellowstone Wolf Project, approximately six years old. Her pup had been born in April. He had died in late May — cause undetermined, likely a developmental failure. He weighed approximately four pounds when he was alive. When F-779 carried him on the eleventh day, he weighed less. She did not put him down."

The Yellowstone Wolf Project has been tracking individual wolves in and around Yellowstone National Park since 1995, when wolves were reintroduced to the park after a 70-year absence. Every wolf in the monitored population is given a designation — a letter indicating s*x (M or F) and a number. F-779 was first documented in 2016 as a subordinate female in the Junction Butte Pack, one of the largest and most-studied packs in the park's history. By 2021, she had become a breeding female — one of the core adults responsible for raising pups.

In April 2021, she gave birth to a litter of four pups. The litter was documented by the Wolf Project's field researchers in the traditional wolf pup census conducted in late spring, when pups are old enough to be observed at the den site but not yet mobile enough to follow the pack on hunts.

Three of the four pups survived infancy. One did not.

The pup who died — unnumbered, as pups who die before their first year are not given individual designations in the Wolf Project's record system — died in late May 2021. He was approximately five to seven weeks old. The cause of death was not determined with certainty in the field; developmental failure in wolf pups at this age is the most common cause of early death in otherwise healthy litters in the Yellowstone population.

F-779 did not leave the pup's body.

Wolf Project field researcher Dr. Kira Cassidy, who has studied wolf social behavior in Yellowstone since 2010, documented F-779's behavior in the weeks following the pup's death in a field report submitted to the Wolf Project's annual research compilation. The report notes:

"F-779 was observed carrying the remains of the deceased pup during pack movements on eleven consecutive days following the pup's confirmed death. The behavior — carrying a deceased offspring during pack travel — has been documented in wolves on four previous occasions in the Yellowstone monitoring record, with duration ranging from two to seven days. Eleven days represents the longest documented instance in the project's twenty-six-year history. F-779 carried the remains consistently, holding the pup by the scruff in the manner used to carry live pups, and was not observed setting the remains down during observed movement periods except to rest. Other pack members — including the alpha male M-1048, her littermate F-776, and three yearlings — were observed maintaining lateral distance from F-779 during travel, a behavior consistent with social deference to a pack member in a state of behavioral distress."

The pack maintained lateral distance. This is the precise, measured language of a scientific field report. It means: the other wolves moved to the side, gave her room, did not crowd her. It means they understood something was different about her movement and they responded to that difference with accommodation. It means that a social group of highly coordinated predators, whose survival depends on precise coordination during hunts, chose on eleven consecutive days to reorganize their travel formation around one member's grief.

Social deference to a pack member in a state of behavioral distress.

That is what the report says. What the report describes is something else — something that the language of behavioral science is built to contain but not to name. It describes a group of animals who recognized that one of their own was carrying something she could not set down, and who made space for her to carry it.

F-779 set the pup's remains down for the last time on the twelfth day. The field researchers did not observe the moment — wolf movements between observation windows are not always captured. What they observed was that on day twelve, F-779 was traveling with the pack without the pup's remains, in her normal position within the group's travel formation. The remains were found at a site approximately forty meters from the pack's resting area, consistent with a deliberate placement rather than an accidental dropping during movement.

She had put him down when she was ready. Not when the pack decided. Not when decomposition made it impossible to continue. When she was ready.

Dr. Cassidy added a note to the field report that does not appear in the behavioral data tables — a note in the narrative summary section, which field researchers use for observations that do not fit cleanly into the project's standardized data categories:

"I want to record something about this that the data tables do not capture. I have studied wolves for eleven years. I have observed wolf behavior during births, deaths, territory disputes, hunts, and the complex social negotiations that a pack of thirty individuals conducts continuously. I have observed what I would describe, in careful scientific language, as behavioral indicators of social bonding, grief responses, and intrapack attachment.

What I observed with F-779 over those eleven days was different in degree from anything I have previously documented, though not different in kind. She carried her pup the way you carry something you are not ready to accept is gone. The pack moved around her the way a family moves around someone who is not ready. There was nothing I can point to in any behavioral literature that fully accounts for what I saw. I can account for the data. I cannot account for what the data was describing.

I have been a scientist for eleven years. I am going to write what I observed in the data tables with the precision that science requires. I am also going to write this, in this section, in case someone reads it later and wonders what it felt like to watch.

It felt like watching someone refuse to say goodbye. And it felt like watching everyone around her understand that, and give her the eleven days she needed before she was ready to."

F-779 continued as a breeding female in the Junction Butte Pack through the 2021 and 2022 seasons. In spring 2022, she gave birth to another litter. Three pups survived to their first winter.

She is approximately nine or ten years old as of the most recent Wolf Project monitoring data. For a wild wolf, this is old. The average lifespan of a wolf in Yellowstone is four to five years. F-779 has exceeded that average by several years.

She has been documented in her territory every season since 2016. She raises pups. She hunts with her pack. She moves through the Northern Rocky Mountain landscape with the specific, purposeful efficiency of an animal that knows its territory completely.

The field researchers who have been tracking her for years know her by her GPS collar signal, by her grey coat, by the specific way she holds her tail slightly higher than most of the other females in the pack. They know her the way you know a person you have watched for years from a distance — not closely, not intimately, but consistently, reliably, across every season.

Some of them were in the field during the eleven days in 2021. They watched through spotting scopes. They recorded the data. They wrote the reports.

Dr. Cassidy said, in an informal conversation with a colleague that was later shared with her permission:

"I've been asked many times since the report was published whether F-779 understood that the pup was dead. Whether she knew. I always give the same answer, which is that I don't know, and that behavioral science cannot currently answer that question with certainty. What I know is what I observed. She carried him for eleven days. The pack made space for her. She put him down when she was ready. Whatever she knew or didn't know — whatever was or wasn't happening in her mind during those eleven days — the behavior was the behavior. And the behavior looked exactly like what we would recognize, in a human context, as grief. As love. As a mother who was not ready to let go. We share more with wolves than we think. We always have."

The pup was not given a name. Wolf Project policy does not name pups who die before their first year.

F-779 has no name either. She is F-779.

She carried her son for eleven days in the snow of the Northern Rocky Mountains, and the wolves who ran with her moved to the side, and she put him down when she was ready, and she went on.

That is what the data shows.

The rest is what the data was describing.

06/09/2025

03/27/2023

I love you all so much and appreciate all of you! I am going to be letting go of this new life birth services page because I have not been able to get anything to post to it for months. I’ve got some midwifery posts on my personal Marimikel Potter page, but I now also have Marimikel the Midwife page as well. I would really like for you all to join me on my new venture into Instagram. There is Marimikel Potter on Instagram but please follow me at MariMikel the Midwife, which is the forum for all of the new information about my upcoming book and my midwifery ventures. I’m gonna keep this going for a while because I don’t wanna lose any of you darlings. Thank you for being there for me all these years and I love and cherish you.

10/04/2022

My husband is in a wheelchair and so many children stare and want to engage with him. Many parents often tell their child not to stare. I think we probably learnt it from our parents. My husband has always encouraged children to come and say hello. Children are just curious, and the more they look, and then engage, the more they will understand. Same goes for children to children. We are mostly all the same, and the more we identify that, the more happier we are, and also our communities will be.

09/12/2022

Queen Elizabeth after her fourth Homebirth

Her Majesty was the first royal woman to have her husband accompany her at childbirth when she welcomed her fourth child Prince Edward with Prince Philip present.
…
"The Queen, by then aged 37, had asked him to be there; she'd been keenly reading women's magazines that stressed the importance of involving fathers in childbirth and had become fascinated by the idea. Thus Philip became the first royal father in modern history to witness the birth of his child.”
….
Like her mother, the Queen gave birth to her first child, Prince Charles, at home via caesarean, after a 30 hour labor, but went on to have three VBACs although with scopolamine.
…
Eventually Charles was born by a Caesarean section in a music room in Buckingham Palace which had been converted into a theatre. She was attended by Obstetricians Sir William Gilliatt and Sir John Peel, and also midwife Helen Rowe, who was thought to be present for all the births. Caesarean sections were also less common in the general public at that time; in the 1950s only around 3% were caesarean section. It would have been of some concern that the Queen required one.
…

The midwife Helen Rowe was known to be present as letters written to her by the Queen were discovered after her death. There is an irony in this as, in 1970, Sir John Peel, the queen’s obstetrician, was lead author of the report “Domiciliary midwifery and maternity bed needs”, which recommended 100% of births should be in a hospital.
…

There have been considerable changes that have taken place in maternity services since the births of the Queen’s children. The accessibility of research and information is only one thing! The Queen, in all her experiences as a woman and mother in the role, has paved the way for royal births to be different and opened the door for many of her subjects to challenge the status quo at the time. The importance of looking back in history to see how we have got to where we are should not be overlooked and I challenge others to investigate history of our profession over the past 70 years.
…
From

08/23/2022

A mama with her mini Doulas 💫

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