The Associated Press

HOLMESVILLE, Ohio - A tearful lay midwife for an Amish community returned to jail Friday because she has refused to reveal where she got the drugs she used to treat a patient.

Freida Miller, 48, was ordered held until June 18 for contempt of court. She previously was jailed nearly two months for refusing to provide her drug sources to a grand jury but was released during appeal.

Several dozen supporters, many of them children, lined the walkway to the jail. Miller fought tears as she embraced supporters and accepted a bouquet of flowers and several drawings.

She encouraged the crowd, some of them wearing the traditional bonnets and dark clothing of the Amish and Mennonites, to keep praying.

"God is going to be with me here and I am going to be OK," she told them.

The crowd sang a hymn as Miller entered the jail door.

"It's well known that the medical profession does not like people meddling in their affairs. They do not want you to do home births," said Benjamin Wiker, 42, of Hopedale.

Miller has said she would serve the time to defend the freedom of women to choose home birthing.

Her case continues to draw protests from midwifery supporters around the country.

Miller could be called to testify before another grand jury after the current one is dismissed June 18, assistant Holmes County Prosecutor Stephen Knowling said Friday. She could face additional jail time if she again refused to testify.

"The only way to break this impasse is for her to testify in front of the grand jury truthfully" about her drug provider, Knowling said. "She doesn't get any special privilege because of her occupation."

Miller, a Mennonite, estimates she has helped in nearly 2,000 births over 17 years, mainly in the Amish and Mennonite communities in Holmes and Wayne counties, about 65 miles south of Cleveland.

Miller injected the prescription drugs Pitocin and Methergine into a new mother to stop bleeding after a birth in December 2001.

She pleaded guilty in May to attempted unauthorized practice of medicine and possession of dangerous drugs. Lay midwives are not licensed by the state.

Last week, the 5th Ohio District Court of Appeals in Canton upheld the contempt ruling, and Holmes County Common Pleas Judge Thomas White gave her until Friday to release the information.

Miller said she has spoken with the people who gave her the drugs and told them she's willing to take the punishment.

"It is my religious conviction that you do not destroy someone else with your actions," she told the Cleveland Plain Dealer.