The Midwife's Dilemma

by Delia Parr

  Although it was getting nearly impossible to resist him, she knew that his kisses were far too dangerous, especially when they were alone like this. “I’m sorely tempted to let you, but you’ll get only one,” she cautioned before pressing a quick kiss to his lips. She then scrambled to her feet and straightened her skirts. “I’m afraid it’s getting late. We need to leave right now if we hope to get home for supper and, more important, before dark. Along the way, perhaps we could discuss the idea that I might want to borrow one of your horses. But just now and then.”

  “There’s no need to discuss it. You can borrow one of the horses whenever you want,” he replied and reluctantly got to his feet. “And I’m not worried about supper or driving the buggy in the dark, either,” he grumbled.

  She felt a blush spread across her cheeks. “Neither am I.”

  14

  Fortunately, Martha arrived home before dark and just in time for supper.

  She had barely sat down when a worried Jonathan Goodfellow appeared at the door, telling her that Nell Carruth, the afternurse who was staying with his wife, had sent him here to fetch Martha back to check on Henny. In a matter of minutes, she had changed into her riding skirt, tied her bonnet in place, and was hurrying down the hall with her bag of simples in her hand and a prayer on her lips.

  Before she opened the door, she paused just long enough to put a reassuring smile on her face. Once outside, she was pleased to see that the same old, docile mare he had brought for her earlier would accompany her again. Before she mounted, she ran back inside to remind Victoria of their plans to have supper with Thomas and his family tomorrow night. Since she did not know quite what to expect, she also asked Victoria to offer apologies on the off chance she had not come home by then.

  She got back outside just as Mr. Goodfellow finished tying her bag in place. She accepted his help to get astride before he mounted his own horse, and she continued to pray as she followed him down the alley. Noting the man’s troubled features, she waited until they had left the noise of the town behind to try to ease some of his concerns. “It’s not all that uncommon for me to be summoned back, especially where first babes are concerned. Your place isn’t all that far from town, but it would be really helpful to me if you could repeat exactly what Mrs. Carruth said to tell me before we get there,” she said as they passed the new tavern and headed west on Falls Road at a steady pace.

  When he looked over at her, the worry that creased his brow also simmered in his eyes. “She said something about Henny losing too much blood. She might have said more, but Henny was so pale and so listless, I was too worried to hear much else. You can help her, right? You won’t let anything happen to my Henny, will you?”

  “I’ll take good care of her,” Martha promised and kept up with him when he urged his horse into more of a gallop than a canter. They reached his farm in half the time it had taken on her previous visit. The moment she entered the bedroom in the two-room cabin, she took in the grave concern on Nell’s face, turned around, and sent the man back to wait in the other room. She quickly walked past the cradle, where the newborn was sleeping, to reach his mother’s bedside.

  With her heart beating just a little faster, she stood next to the slight, seventy-something woman who had years of experience as an afternurse, and they both looked down at Henny. Normally the stunning woman with flaming-red hair had a porcelain complexion, but there was nothing normal about the woman’s pallor, which now made her appear to be more dead than alive. Just as alarming, her breaths were coming in slow, shallow efforts.

  “I’ve never seen anyone slip so fast,” Nell whispered and wrung her hands. “Everything was going so well. Then a couple of hours ago, she started bleeding, and bleeding hard, so I did what I always do. I packed her up good with cloth and got her to drink a toddy with an extra dollop of honey wine and waited a bit, but it didn’t seem to help much at all. That’s when I sent Mr. Goodfellow to fetch you back.”

  “You did exactly the right thing.” Martha tossed her bonnet aside and washed her hands while Nell gathered up some fresh cloths and a fresh basin of water. Martha’s attempts to revive Henny by pressing cool cloths against her face were met with only a few groans.

  When she eased away the bedsheet that covered Henny’s body, she was horrified to see a pool of fresh blood that warned her she might already be too late. Henny was hemorrhaging, and Martha wasted no time to see if she could determine the reason. Working quickly and silently, she rolled up the sheets from the bottom of the bed until they reached the middle of Henny’s chest, keeping her long nightgown in place to protect the woman’s modesty.

  It did not take Martha long to dismiss the possibility that the woman was hemorrhaging because she had not expelled all of the afterbirth. And with no visible tears caused by little Peter’s birth, that only left the likelihood that there were injuries within Henny’s womb that were responsible for the bleeding.

  Deeply concerned at her ability to stop the bleeding before it was too late to save Henny’s life, she drew a deep breath and walked straight out of the room to talk to the harried husband and ask him to do something she had never done before. “Your wife is gravely ill. I’ll do everything I can to stop the bleeding, but at this point, every minute counts. We can’t afford to wait more than another hour or so to see if my efforts are successful. If they aren’t, it might be too late by then to summon Dr. McMillan. I think it would be wise and in your wife’s best interests to fetch him now and pray he might have a treatment that will save her if she hasn’t improved by the time he gets here.”

  The color drained from his face. “Is she going to die?”

  “Not if we can help it, but the longer we stand here talking, the longer she’ll have to wait for me to help her and the longer it will be before Dr. McMillan gets here.”

  He tore out of the cabin so fast he did not even close the door behind him.

  “You must be able to think of something!” Martha exclaimed.

  After waiting half the night for Dr. McMillan to arrive, she was frantic. She could not blame him for taking so long, since he had been out on a call when Jonathan Goodfellow arrived at his home and came as soon as he could. She kept her gaze locked with Dr. McMillan’s and hoped she kept her voice low, but her heart was pounding in her ears, and she could not be sure if he answered her or not. “Henny is going to die unless you do. In fact, I’m surprised she’s lasted this long.”

  He raked his fingers through his hair. “I’ve told you. I can’t do more than you’ve already done,” he insisted. “As difficult as it might be to admit it, sometimes you just have to accept the fact that you can’t save everyone, and neither can I. I fear this is one of those times.”

  Thankful that they were alone together in the bedroom and Henny was not conscious to hear them, she shook her head. “This is not about me or my opinion of my abilities, and it’s not about you, either. It’s all about that young woman lying over there who is going to bleed to death, and a newborn babe named Peter James who’ll grow up never knowing his mama, unless you can help her. You’re the one with the fancy medical degree hanging on your wall and a stack of medical journals on your desk with the latest advances in medicine from here, there, and everywhere. Think, young man, think! There must be something you can do to try to save her.”

  He looked away. After several long, tension-filled moments, he turned and faced her again. “The Lancet is a weekly medical journal in London. I’ve read a number of articles in it written by Dr. Blundell that might be of help. He’s renowned for his work in the field of childbirth, but there isn’t anything I’ve read elsewhere to suggest his method of saving a hemorrhaging woman after she’s given birth has been widely accepted in Europe, let alone on this side of the Atlantic.”

  “Do you think his method will stop the bleeding?”

  He grimaced. “Not per se, but according to what I’ve read, it may give her body the time it needs to heal, which in turn will stop the bleeding. But you have to und
erstand something: I’ve never done anything like this before. I may not do it right, and even if I do, it may not work at all. Some critics of his method claim that half the time it doesn’t.”

  “Then half the time it does,” she argued and turned him about until he faced the door. “Go out there and talk to Mr. Goodfellow. Tell him what you’ve just told me. If he wants you to go ahead, you owe him and you owe his wife your best efforts. The rest is in God’s hands. It always is.”

  After drawing a deep breath, Dr. McMillan walked out of the room and returned with Henny’s husband a few moments later. The doctor looked as grave as she had ever seen him. Judging by the square set of his shoulders, he was ready to proceed, and he put the wooden chair he was carrying next to Henny’s bed. With Nell still tending to little Peter in the other room, he told the young husband to take a seat on the chair and roll up one of his shirtsleeves. He put Martha to work clearing the small bedside table, opened his medical bag, and laid out a number of instruments on top of the table the moment she finished.

  “I need fresh cloths for bandages and a small basin on the table,” he ordered before removing his frock coat and rolling up his shirtsleeves. “Listen very carefully, both of you, because I only have time to explain it once,” he cautioned while he washed his hands.

  Martha swallowed hard and noted the pale expression on poor Jonathan. What the doctor proposed to do was like nothing she had ever heard of before, and she offered a silent prayer that he would be successful.

  He took a deep breath. “Remember. Once I actually start the procedure, I have to work very, very quickly, and I cannot stop.”

  He began by using a lancet to open the flesh on Henny’s arm to reveal a small vein, which is exactly what he would have done if he intended to bleed her. Next, he pressed a cloth to the open wound and had Martha hold it in place. After taking another deep breath, he performed the same procedure on her husband and had the young man hold a cloth against the incision himself.

  The doctor was sweating profusely at this point. Martha watched with awe and disbelief when he picked up the metal syringe she had seen him use to suck infection from a wound, removed the cloth covering the incision he had made in Jonathan’s arm, and inserted the needle into the vein to withdraw some blood.

  “The moment I finish, I need you to remove the cloth from Henny’s arm,” he said firmly. Seconds later he withdrew the needle, forced out any air from the barrel of the syringe, turned, and inserted the needle directly into Henny’s vein to infuse it with her husband’s blood. After repeating the procedure once more, he stitched up the incision in both of his patients’ arms, secured a bandage around both, and sent the husband away with orders for the man to take a good swig of honey wine and rest.

  Dr. McMillan collapsed into the chair and mopped his brow, while Martha sat down on the bed next to Henny and tried to absorb the incredible thought that it was possible to transfer blood from one person to another to save someone’s life. She had neither the knowledge nor the skill to even attempt such a thing, and it suddenly occurred to her that after struggling to help this young doctor over the past few months, she had been wrong to consider this man as her professional enemy or to judge all of his methods as wretched.

  While it may be the case that midwives were being forced to abandon their work as doctors took over, especially in large eastern cities, here in Trinity, she was in the unique position of having a doctor who was willing to work with her, rather than against her. And if Trinity continued to grow at the current rate, there would be more than enough work to keep both a midwife and a doctor busy.

  There was a certain peace about that whole idea now that gave her hope that there was indeed a future here for the midwife who would replace Martha. And she had a whole new respect for the man who claimed her daughter’s heart, too.

  “I’m very proud of you. You did really well,” she said. “How soon will you know if this will work?”

  He blew out a long puff of air. “Her color should improve within a few hours at the most. If it does, we can take that as a good sign. If it doesn’t . . . then I’ve failed. Would you have the time to sit and wait with me?”

  “I’d be honored,” she replied. “Truly honored.”

  15

  By dawn, Henny Goodfellow still had a long road to travel, but by midafternoon, both Dr. McMillan and Martha agreed that Henny was well on her journey back to full health.

  Martha stayed with Henny for an hour after the doctor left before heading back to Trinity herself. After convincing the relieved husband that she was quite capable of returning on her own, he agreed to let Martha borrow the same mare and stable her overnight at Dr. McMillan’s, where he would retrieve it the following day.

  She rode away still bathed in the afterglow of the miracle she had just witnessed. Since she still had a few hours before she needed to be back in town to have supper at Thomas’s, she decided to take advantage of having her own mount and detoured some eight miles west to speak with one of the four most likely women to replace her: Charlotte Weyland.

  With two of her daughters already grown and married, Charlotte was not Martha’s first choice, in part because she lived so far away from town, but she had a good heart and a real talent with laboring women. She had also dismissed any interest in taking over Martha’s duties as midwife when Martha mentioned the idea last year, although she had agreed to think it over some more.

  As Martha approached the homestead, she held on to the hope that she might change the woman’s mind. When she arrived and found Charlotte recovering from devastating burns that left her with little use of her left arm, she never even approached the topic that had brought her here. Instead, she gave the woman a number of remedies to help ease her discomfort and left an hour later with a heavy heart. She prayed for Charlotte all the way back to Trinity.

  With no time to waste on chitchat if she saw anyone she knew, she bypassed Main Street completely and took the narrower road that skirted the rear of the properties on the east side of town. She passed the tavern first and noted that the wooden structure was still so new it had yet to be weathered by the elements.

  She focused on the packed roadway as memories swirled in her mind and escaped from the recesses of her heart. With her mind’s eye, she could still see her brother’s tavern, the room he had added for her to share with Victoria, and the gardens just outside her window, where she had cultivated the herbs for the tavern that she also used to make her simples.

  She was eternally grateful to God that she had survived the fire that had reduced the tavern to ashes. And for Thomas, who had risked his life to save Grandmother Poore’s diary and the box of papers where every birth since the town’s founding were recorded, although the daybook she had been keeping for Victoria had been lost forever.

  Her daughter had escaped the fire simply because she had not yet returned to Trinity after running away; otherwise, almost everything Martha had ever known or loved at that tavern was now gone, including her brother and his wife, who had moved to Sunrise to be near their three grown daughters and to find work for James.

  She glanced back over her shoulder to take another look at the new tavern and sighed. Since Dr. McMillan was one of the investors who now owned the tavern, she made a mental note to ask him if she might temporarily reclaim her old gardens to grow her plants and herbs again, at least until she could find her replacement, who might need the space, as well. She hoped her future son-in-law would agree with her idea, especially since she would promise to provide the tavern kitchen with any herbs they wanted.

  Buoyed by the possibility, she spurred the mare to go a little faster and reached the grounds behind Dr. McMillan’s house without incident. She dismounted and led the horse toward the stable to stretch her legs a bit. The moment she stepped inside, however, she braced to a halt so quickly the horse actually walked into her. Stumbling forward, she managed to catch herself before she fell, and she glared at young Will, who was sitting on the side of a stall where
that insufferable white horse was munching on some straw.

  “What do you think you’re doing?” Martha asked.

  The boy gave her a smirk. “Waitin’ for you. I found this dumb horse in the woods out by the lake in that old meadow near our cabin. Looks just like the one Mr. Dillon said you lost, and I wanted to collect the reward he promised to anyone who found it. It’s the right horse, isn’t it?”

  Martha rolled her eyes. “Yes, although I didn’t lose that horse. She ran away,” she grumbled and took a quick glance around. With no sign that Leech had made his way back, she led the mare she had ridden home into the first stall and got her settled. “Just exactly what kind of reward did Mr. Dillon promise?”

  Will jumped down from the stall and handed her a crude and badly wrinkled flier he had stuffed into his pocket. “Two whole dollars. See?”

  Her eyes widened. “Where did you get that flier?”

  “Mr. Fancy brought it home. He said there were lots of ’em posted around town.”

  Martha could not imagine why Thomas would post fliers to get Bella back, but she surely intended to ask him tonight. “Two dollars is a good sum of money.” Two dollars was also the sum she received for delivering a babe, although she rarely received her rewards in coin.

  She was tempted to tell the boy to take Bella over to Thomas’s house, but the mare looked content at the moment and Leech must have been scared off, at least for a while. She decided to keep Bella here and talk to Thomas about it when she saw him tonight.

  Will grinned. “I bet lotsa folks were lookin’ real hard, but I found the horse first.”

  “Well, I don’t have two dollars in coin, so you’ll have to see Mr. Dillon about that.” She set her bag of simples outside of the stall before removing the saddle.