The Midwife of Hope River Read online

  “Oh, honey!” His tiny wife, wearing a pink-checked housedress, greets me and takes my coat as if I was someone important. “We’re so glad you could come.” Maybe she thinks I’m Daniel Hester’s sister. Or maybe his wife.

  I’d expected Hilda might be a large German shepherd, a golden retriever, or a valuable black-and-white sheepdog, but instead I see a cute mongrel with short legs and a fluffy white coat waddling toward us. Her sides heave at the rate of about 120 heartbeats a minute. I’m not sure what’s normal for dogs, but this doesn’t look right. The pitiful little animal stumbles and gives the vet’s hand a lick. Hester sits on a footstool and palpates her abdomen, then nods for me to come over. I sit down on the carpet next to him.

  “Feel her. She’s bulging with pups, as round as a basketball. And look, see the fluid trickling out?” I run my hands along her sides. Her tail droops sadly between her little legs, and her big brown eyes stare at me hopefully. Sorry, pup, I’m a midwife for women and have no idea how to help you.

  “What do you think?” the farmer asks, bending over and touching his pooch on the head.

  Hester grunts. “Something must be blocking the way. I’ll examine her first. Can you get me some hot water, soap, and a stack of towels? I want to put her up on something.”

  He carries the little dog into the kitchen. I layer two towels onto the oilcloth-covered table, then, hoping to look useful, open the vet’s bag, dig around in it, and pour some of the antiseptic soap I find inside into the washbowl. Hester carefully cleanses his hands, takes the dog’s temperature, then sticks out his finger for more soap and reaches inside her. Hilda doesn’t even look back; she’s that miserable.

  “It’s a big one,” he says as he pulls out. “And it’s still alive . . . You feel.” He pours the antiseptic soap on my finger, and I copy his action. It is nothing like doing a vaginal examination on a woman. For one thing, the doggie’s vagina is extremely tiny, and for another, whatever is presenting is all bumps and lumps. I have no idea what I’m feeling and wonder how he can be sure that the pup is alive when I feel its mouth open and a little tongue sweep by.

  “It licked me!” I whisper.

  “Can you get a grip on anything? Your fingers are smaller than mine.”

  I frown. “What would I grip?”

  “Just give it a shot,” he whispers with his back turned to the Dreshers, who stand respectfully back at the kitchen door. “I don’t want to use forceps. If I fail, I’ll have to take her back to the office for a cesarean section. She’s in such bad shape she might not make it.”

  I take a deep breath and mull things over. “If we could lift her front legs up, support her somehow, that might bring the presenting part lower. Once or twice I’ve had women squat for a birth.” Mr. and Mrs. Dresher stare at us hopefully. They probably think we do this together all the time.

  The vet looks skeptical but does what I ask, supports the small animal under her forelegs and lifts her head and trunk up eight inches.

  “A little more?” He goes up another four inches until Hilda is standing like a poodle in the circus. The unborn puppy’s snout comes down an inch, and it licks the tip of my finger again. That gives me an idea. I reach a little farther, turn my hand over, get the tip of my index finger into the animal’s mouth, and pull down on the jaw. Mrs. Kelly did something like this back in Pittsburgh when an Irish woman, Jennie O’Hare, had a baby in a face presentation. You have to be very gentle.

  I smile and look up at Hester and then across at the worried Dreshers. “It’s moving!”

  Hilda feels it too, and a little strength returns to her pushing. I know she can’t understand me, but I can’t help myself and I get excited. “Push, Mama. Push with all your heart!”

  Mrs. Dresher comes over and joins in the cheerleading, pulls up a chair, puts her chin in her hand, and concentrates all her energy toward the little pooch. “Push, honey. You can do it!”

  Hester shakes his head and grins that crooked smile, but soon we can see the tip of a black snout at the opening. I don’t let go, just keep up with my gentle traction until the widest part of a good-sized head appears at the opening and the water gushes out. Then the vet tips the mother dog on her side to catch her breath.

  The first large puppy lies very still, and I want to jump in and blow on it, but the vet elbows me out of the way and brings the newborn around to Hilda’s head, where she licks it until it squirms and finally breathes.

  After the first pup, the rest of the births are easy, with four more dogs born in their sacs slipping out one after the other.

  When we are all done and Hilda is stable and resting, Mr. Hester and I take turns washing up in the indoor bathroom and Mrs. Dresher sets out tea and coffee cake in the living room. Companionably, we observe the brown-and-white newborns, now in a basket near the hearth with their mother, whining and squirming for the best place to nurse while George Olsen belts out “A Precious Little Thing Called Love” on the radio: “What’s the one thing makes me say Heaven’s just across the way. It’s a precious little thing called love.” Animals, I reflect, are not much different from humans when it comes to birth and the feelings they have for their newborns. The little white dog’s eyes are moist with love.

  Back in the Model T, Daniel Hester and I drive in silence. As we pass through Liberty, I notice the copper’s car is now in front of Mrs. Barnett’s Boarding House. Have the lawmen moved here permanently? At last Hester’s auto slugs up Wild Rose Road. It’s been a long day.

  “I appreciate your coming with me,” he says formally. It’s the first time we’ve spoken since we left the Dreshers’. “It’s always a pleasure having your company.” Briefly, I imagine we’re returning from a charity ball at the Oneida Inn.

  “I’m beat, but I enjoyed it. It’s interesting . . .” We pull up in front of my house. “Do you want to come in?”

  “For another rum toddy?” He gives me that grin, and I can see his white teeth in the very dark car.

  “Out of luck there, no rum,” I tease.

  “Then I better be going.” He reaches over and pats my arm, and I can feel his warmth through my jacket.

  “Drive safely,” I say and jump from the car.

  “You know me.” He guns his motor and turns around, skidding like a racecar driver in the mud.

  The hounds bark wildly out back, but I stand on the porch watching until his little amber taillights wink out at the bend.

  21

  Five Crows

  Bitsy hasn’t come home since the cave-in. The first night, after the Wildcat disaster, she slept at Thomas’s. Now it’s Sunday and she must have stayed for church and maybe a potluck afterward. Who can blame her? I know she misses her family.

  So many times she’s asked me to come to church with her, but my faith in God is as thin as the cheesecloth we used to use to strain milk. Though the Hazel Patch flock are black, it’s not a matter of color; it’s that they are true believers and I’d feel out of place.

  Yesterday five crows landed in a row on a branch of the bare oak just outside the kitchen window. I sat drinking peppermint tea and stared at them as they stared at me. It was strange because crows don’t usually come right up to the house. I felt that they had brought me a message, only I was too deaf to hear it.

  Another day passes, and still Bitsy’s not home. It’s been three days and it’s a free world, but I miss her footsteps and even her clanging around with the iron poker in the stove at six A.M. Just as I’m preparing for bed, the dogs begin to growl and someone knocks on the door. I haven’t heard an engine, so whoever it is must have come with a horse or a cart. Resentfully, I pull on my clothes, clump down the stairs, and light a kerosene lamp.

  “Miss Patience,” a woman’s voice calls. She pounds on the door again, and when I swing it open, she almost falls in. “I’m Ruth Klopfenstein. Sorry to wake you, but we live on the other side of Hope Ridge on Bucks Run and my sister-in-law, Molly, is in labor.” The young woman, in her early twenties, dressed all in bla
ck with a black scarf and gold wire-rimmed glasses like mine, is a wholesome farm girl with sandy hair that shines in the kerosene lamplight.

  “Granny says something’s wrong and I should get you. We’ve been driving around for the last hour. Missed your road the first time.”

  “Is this her first baby? How long has she been in labor?” I ask the two questions almost as one. If this is a second or third child, she may have already given birth.

  “It’s her first. She started paining yesterday. My granny’s not a midwife, but she brought all of us into the world, my brothers and sisters and my four cousins. This is the first time she’s been stumped.”

  Great, I think. Wait until you have trouble, then call the midwife! On the other hand, how can I not go? A life is at stake, maybe two. I grab my birth satchel and trot out to the road, wishing Bitsy were home to share this night’s adventure. It’s true, I’ve become dependent on her.

  In the mud-spattered buggy, I’m surprised to find an old man. Again the black clothes and the wire-rimmed glasses, this time with a floppy-brimmed black hat. Ruth doesn’t introduce me, so I hop in and we ride the rest of the way in silence.

  It takes fifty minutes to travel through the muck around Raccoon Lick, past the vet’s house, and then another half a mile up Bucks Run until we turn off. This is a hollow I’ve never seen before, never even heard of. There are four log homes along the swollen creek. A narrow meadow follows the run back toward the mountain. Lights are on in each dwelling, and I imagine that they are all Klopfensteins. We stop at the first building, a sturdy two-story log house with a long front porch. I don’t wait for an invitation but hop out of the wagon and head for the door, already opening.

  “Hi. I’m Patience Murphy, the midwife.” I still feel that calling myself “the midwife” is a little overstated, like I’m playing a part in a novel. My experience is so limited compared to Mrs. Kelly’s and Mrs. Potts’s.

  “I’m Mrs. Klopfenstein, Molly’s mum.” A worried woman, her worn face pale in the kerosene lamplight, grips my hand, adjusts her specs, and guides me into the front bedroom. I take in the occupants. The laboring woman is young and looks so much like Ruth, same round face with golden hair, that they could be twins, only her yellow mane is matted and sweaty. She’s doesn’t even open her eyes when her mother introduces me.

  “Child, here’s the midwife,” she announces, then takes her seat. Ruth sits down too. There are five of them on five hard-backed chairs arranged alongside the bed, and they are all dressed in black with the same round eyeglasses. This must be a family with very bad eyesight. Five black crows.

  I turn to the oldest woman, the one who appears to be the grandmother, a wisp of a thing, with white hair in a bun. She’s skinny and flat-chested but has brown arms that could still lift a bale of hay. “Ruth told me you planned to deliver your great-grandbaby, but there seems to be a problem. Something’s not right?”

  The old woman pinches her mouth, stands up, and leads me toward the kitchen. In the long narrow room with a fireplace at the end, there’s a table covered with oilcloth, a sink with a metal hand pump, and a cast-iron cookstove against the wall.

  “The baby’s not coming. It’s as simple as that. Little Molly went into labor two days ago and seemed to be making some progress. All night she pained, and then around dawn she just petered out. I washed my hands and had a feel about suppertime. The head was there and she was about half open, but since her water broke everything’s stopped. The baby’s still alive, I know that much; we seen it move.”

  I take a deep breath and try to look competent. “So have you considered going to the hospital in Torrington? The doctors there could do an operation . . .” Grandma vigorously shakes her head and looks as if I’ve just asked whether she’d consider taking a tour of Hell.

  “Have you tried any herbs?” The old woman shrugs. “Okay, I’ll do what I can, but if the baby’s too big, I can’t change that. Let me study the situation. When did her water break?”

  “Last night at the strike of twelve.”

  I calculate back. That’s twenty hours gone already, and Mrs. Kelly always said never to let the sun set twice on a woman in labor.

  Molly

  Back in the bedroom, I find the patient still lying on her side with a wet towel between her legs. At first I think she’s sleeping, but when I touch her on her shoulder her blue eyes flick open.

  “Molly, I’m Patience Murphy, the midwife. Your granny says you’ve been in labor a long time and the pains seem to be spacing out and getting weaker. I’m going to try to figure out what’s wrong. Can you turn on your back?”

  The girl has spent all her energy but with assistance rolls over. Next I lay my hand on her abdomen and wait for a contraction. I wait and wait, but if she’s having them they’re too weak to feel. The uterus has all but given out.

  While the other five women watch, their pale blue eyes following me behind the round glasses, I move my wooden stethoscope back and forth until finally I find the baby’s heartbeat just below the belly button, right where it should be. I raise my hand and count out the beats to demonstrate the rate and then pull on my sterilized gloves.

  “Here come my fingers,” I warn as I slide them into the young woman’s opening, aware that once again I am violating the law.

  The first thing I find is the head, just like Grandma described, only it’s not flexed; I can feel the baby’s soft spot right in the middle. DeLee calls this the military position; the head is held like a soldier’s at attention instead of flexed.

  “Has Molly been out of bed much?” I ask the five crows, stalling for time.

  “Not since her water broke,” they answer in chorus.

  “Not at all?”

  “Not since she started leaking,” they answer again. That’s twenty hours!

  “Once the waters come, we never let the woman out of bed,” says Granny. “You don’t want the cord to suffocate.” I’ve heard this before, the idea that the cord will get trapped or prolapsed, but if the head of a full-term baby is deep in the pelvis, that’s highly unlikely. There’s no reason to immobilize a woman when moving around can ease the pain, make the pains stronger, and help the baby get into the most favorable position.

  “Is she drinking?”

  “We’ve tried to get her to suck on a rag dipped in sugar water, but she just turns her head.” That’s Granny again.

  No wonder the mother has lost her contractions. It takes as much energy to give birth as it does to load a wagon with split wood, so this woman’s running on empty. I smile to myself, actually happy now to have something to work on—the basics, fluids and sustenance—but I have to move fast. Too much time has been lost.

  “Molly, I think your bladder is full. That could keep the baby from coming. When did you last go pee?” Molly looks at her mother, waiting for her mother to answer.

  “We just put a cloth between her legs so she won’t have to get up. It’s been a few hours, but there hasn’t been much.”

  I wince. This isn’t good. “Okay, bring me the chamber pot. We have to have her get up. The bladder isn’t disposed to empty when a person is lying down.”

  The five crows gape at me in disbelief.

  “The potty? The chamber pot!” I repeat.

  The crows fold their arms across their black chests like Supreme Court judges who’ve come to a verdict—and not a good one. Finally, the younger woman, Ruth, rises slowly, leaves the room and returns with a white enamel pot on a wire handle, the kind they sell at Mullin’s Hardware for two bits. She sets it down next to the bed and without a word goes back to her chair.

  “Okay, ladies.” I lay it out. “I’m going to need your help to get Molly up, then we need to get some broth in her. Chicken soup would be good or ginger tea with raspberry leaf, ginseng, and honey to give her strength. Do you have any?” Mrs. Klopfenstein nods.

  “Molly, give me a hand with your sister. The rest of you go whistle up some grub.” As soon I say it, I regret my choice of words.
I sound like a foreman at a lumber camp. Nevertheless, the women rise and head for the kitchen.

  Alone with Molly, Ruth and I struggle her up, sit her on the pot, and change the linens.

  “Were you able to go?” I ask the patient as I fluff up her pillows.

  “A little.” They’re her first words. “I’m having a pain, though. Not like last night but a small one.” I reach over and touch her belly. She’s right; her uterus is trying to contract. After she’s back in bed, Grandma feeds her the broth and ginger tea with sugar while I try to figure out what to do next. I consider getting out my black cohosh tincture, but Mrs. Kelly always warned that it could cause dangerously strong contractions and should be used only as a last resort.

  Male Energy

  An idea comes to me. “Okay, I know you are so tired, Molly, but it’s time to walk.” Molly doesn’t budge, and the five ladies-in-waiting, who’ve drifted back to their chairs, stare at one another, probably wondering why they ever called in this crazy midwife. I try the positive approach, though I’m making this up as I go along.

  “Molly, your baby’s head is deep in the pelvis, but it’s not flexed, so there’s no way it can come out.” The girl turns toward me slowly. “If we get you moving, the baby will shift and the contractions may come back. If you just lie here, you’ll be pregnant forever.” I don’t say what I really mean: And you’ll eventually get a fever and the baby will die . . . and you will die with it.

  “Come on, Ruth, you can help. Come on, Mrs. Klopfenstein! Each of you stand on a side.” The older woman shakes her head but does what I tell her. “Now, up you go, Molly. Where’s Molly’s husband?”

  “Next door with the menfolk. This ain’t their place,” declares Grandma.

  “Well, I know men aren’t usually included, but I think in situations like this the baby’s father needs to come see his wife and give her some encouragement.” No one moves. “Which house is he in, anyway? I’ll get him.” That does the trick. The stiff crow in the middle, who I now notice is pregnant and has one withered leg, limps out the door.