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Although the medical journals, and most of the medical profession, stress that it is "too risky" for women to deliver on their own, Oliver learned otherwise.
"Women taught me how powerful they are," he said. "They are certainly capable of delivering a baby on their own... That's not to say there isn't any pain. But the focus is on the satisfaction of being totally in control."
As the introducer of the water birthing process at Harris Regional Hospital, Oliver recalled one woman in labor who, when dilated 3 centimeters and her pain increased, cried out for an epidural. Oliver had the birthing pool filled with water and eased her in. Soon her body began to relax and she forgot about the epidural. Her birthing was gentle and joyous.
"As she hugged her baby in that special bonding moment, she told me that if she had an epidural it would have been like climbing to the top of Mt. Everest and when you're almost there, within 100 feet, somebody picks you up and carries you the rest of the way," he said.
In addition to water birthing, Oliver initiated the use of midwives and homeopathic remedies in this mostly traditional health care system.
Talking about traditional medical birthing with inducing labor, episiotomies and epidurals, Oliver said, "It hurts me to see doctors hurting babies; I know they are not doing it on purpose... and it does give therapists something to do in the future."
Currently, he's writing a book about fetal trauma and how problems at birth affect the baby forever. Traumas he plans to describe include an unwanted baby when an abortion fails. Or the trauma of fetal reduction during artificial insemination when four or five of the fetuses are killed so one can live. Or the trauma of "crack" babies whose mothers were addicts. Or the trauma of toxicity if the mother smoked. Or the trauma of the haunted womb where there's twins and one dies.
"I've seen studies of twins playing together in the womb... kind of a pat-a-cake game... and when they are born, they play that same kind of game together. The death of a twin can be a real trauma to the one who lives," he said.
Oliver said he felt terror for the first time in his life when he experienced "rebirthing" therapy.
"As I re-enacted my birth, I found myself trapped in the birth canal, struggling for breath and unable to breathe... I struggled to get out before I suffocated, so I pushed and pushed with my head until I broke free," he said, describing the conscious trance search therapy he under went. "After reliving that experience, my asthma disappeared."
Ask this Gestaltist why he chose OB-GYN, he'll reply, "Simple. In med school, I really loved surgery. I practiced under Dr. Henry Swan, who performed the first open-heart transplant.
"I loved surgery, but not burns. I didn't like bones. I loved pediatrics, but parents suck. Internal medicine was a bit of a bore, and obstetrics-gynecology was simply delightful. You're helpful to people and you learn a lot about endocrinology, plus you are dealing with a wonderful population - women," said this physician who found out early on that he related well to women. In the 60s, Oliver became involved with the feminist movement and started working with human sexuality, receiving his PhD in that concentration.
When he set up his practice, he remembered one of his first patients putting life into perspective for him.
"There I was with my inflated ego and swollen head - finally an important doctor, so I asked this woman why she came to me. 'Because you're the cheapest in town' she told me.'"
Putting life in perspective, with a sense of humor, has been Oliver's trademark throughout his varied medical career.
"One patient kept telling me how bad off she was and all the things that were wrong with her. So I just folded my arms, looked her in the eye and said, 'My goodness, you're just a mess! We're going to have to call the dogs to come and get you.'"
It's that kind of unexpected humor that relaxed his Sylva patients, one of whom said, "Your feet are in these metal stirrups on a stiff examination table and naturally you are uncomfortable and nervous, knowing your body is going to be invaded with cold medical instruments. But when Dr. Oliver comes into the room and starts joking with you, pretty soon you are laughing and your muscles relax. Dr. Oliver is the kind of doctor that actually makes you look forward to an appointment."
Oliver's perspective on life is, "The whole world is extremely humorous - we need to recognize our own joy."
Nothing is that serious, he contends, so "there's no use sweating the small stuff since it's all small stuff. If a patient is worried about something, I say to her, 'Now would it really bother you if you were on a galloping horse?'"
Patient after patient say they appreciated Oliver's robust style and alternative to traditional medicine. "I liked his overall healthy approach to life and how he stressed natural herbs and even took the time to tell me which ones he was taking and how he felt they helped him," said one.
"He really [understand] the female body better than any doctor, or any other female, I've ever known," another said. "When he treated me, it wasn't just for an isolated condition, but for how my body was functioning overall."
Friends ask him what he is going to do now that he is retired, and he quickly tells them, "Any damn thing I want to!"
His daughter, Brooke, said, "Now, Dad, you need to have some definitive answers when people ask you that. Like make a list of five things that you plan to do."
So he took her advice. "Now I tell people I'm going to play a piano in a whore house; I don't play, but who's going to notice?
"Next on my list will be studying the imponderables... like if a number two pencil is the best, why don't they call it number one?"
Meanwhile, he has something else to study. "My wife and I sold our big house and are moving into the little house. Have you ever tried to squeeze a big house into a little house?"
Part of the move was to simplify his life in retirement. He needs to be able to travel with little notice. As a member of the Association of Pre and Perinatal Psychology and Health, he's a much-requested presenter at conventions. APPAH, he says, "believes in returning birth to women since they do it so much better than doctors."
Oliver certainly didn't wait until retirement to travel though. He's already globetrotted, living in such places as Japan, Hawaii, Guam, where he was a sexual offenders therapist, and American Samoa, where he was chief of obstetrics.
For a while he quit medicine and ran a conscious-raising growth center. Then he was "dragged back" into medicine at the Mountain Area Health and Education Center in Asheville. "I'm a desert rat, but I fell in love with Western North Carolina," he said. "When I came it was October and there was frost on my windshield; it was great to feel cool again."
"Bob's already done what most people save for their retirement," said friend Ben Bridgers, who accompanied him on a week-long rafting expedition on the Colorado River two years ago and is planning to go with him again next year. "When I went, it was Bob's 15th trip taking people on the river through the Grand Canyon. In fact, he was one of the first 1,000 people to ever go down the Colorado.
"Everybody on the trip called him 'Dr. Bob' and had a great time. I can't imagine anybody more fun to go on a trip with than Bob. He simply loves life and he doesn't hold back," the Sylva attorney said.
"I'm in a flow now," Oliver said. "I really like to sculpt, but every time I'd get into it, I'd get interrupted. That is until I retired. So now I tell people I'm 'waxing out.'" By that he means his method of sculpting where he creates a piece in wax, then melts out the wax and pours metal in the form. "I'm having fun 'waxing out' and, if I get tired of that, I just might go fishing."
And even before his book on fetal trauma is finished, he has another one in the works that he describes as "a scathing report on the medical management of pregnancy."
Like its straightforward author, that book, too, should open many doors.
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