The Midwife of Hope River

by Patricia Harman

  “Finally the specialist came in. He had a trainee, a younger intern eager to learn. Before the gas mask was forced over my face, I saw the two doctors playing with the forceps and I knew what was coming.”

  Prudy let out a long sigh, shaking her shoulders. “When I came out of it, back in the maternity ward, I couldn’t believe the pain I was in. My whole bottom was on fire. I called the nurse to look at me, and she laughed.

  “ ‘What did you think it would feel like after pushing out an eight-pound girl?’ she asked in a superior way. I hurt so badly, I couldn’t hold my baby.

  “Finally on the fourth day after the birth, an older nurse took time to do an examination. I could tell by her face that something was wrong. I was so swollen down below that some of the stitches had pulled out and it was already too late to replace them.

  “A month later, I went to Dr. Blum here in town and he said I must have had a reaction to the iodine in the soap they wash women with. He shook his head when he saw the gaping wound. It was a year before I could have relations—you know, the married kind.

  “Now my husband doesn’t understand why I want to have this one at home. He can’t fathom why I don’t want to go to the hospital. I would rather die!”

  What was I going to say? I promised that when she went into labor, I’d be there.

  February 15, 1930. Rainbow ring around the moon.

  Stanley Elton Lee, 7-pound, 3-ounce male, born to Clara and Curly Lee of Hickory Hollow, just outside of Liberty. Our first colored family, with the exception of Cassie out at Hazel Patch. Mr. Lee was so kind, he even brought us blankets to keep us warm on the way into town. We got stuck in a drift, but Bitsy and I got out and pushed Mr. Lee’s car, and we made it to the house just as Clara’s water broke.

  The baby came twenty minutes later. Five-hour labor. Fourth baby. First son. I saw their little girls peeking through the curtain they use for a bedroom door, but they were so cute, I didn’t care. Very little bleeding. Bitsy was helpful in cleaning the baby and getting everything ready. Present, Mr. Lee, Bitsy and I, and the girls. Paid $3.00 and a gallon of homemade sorghum, which will be very handy on corn bread.

  Prudy

  Late February, and snow is still on the ground. It’s been a rough winter. The snow at one point was up to our windowsills. Now, in only a month, the apple trees should be blooming. Hard to imagine.

  Today, Bitsy and I, at her insistence, went around the outside of the house and knocked off the icicles, some reaching five feet long. I actually enjoyed it, cheered when each big one crashed.

  “The weight of the ice could bring down the gutters,” Bitsy explained “And if ice builds back up under your shingles, it will ruin your roof.”

  That was all news to me. I didn’t do any home maintenance last year. I’ve never owned a house before, but Bitsy has lived in town with the MacIntoshes all her life and she knows these things. In many practical ways she’s so much more knowledgeable than I am. She even went to school five years longer than I did, though I consider myself just as educated.

  Around noon, as small flakes of snow like cold ash begin to fall, an unfamiliar vehicle whines up Wild Rose Road. At first, from a distance, as it slips and slides through the slush, I think it might be Katherine, on the run again, and my heart grows cold, but as the vehicle rumbles closer I make out a Ford, not an Olds.

  The auto stops by our mailbox, and a stranger, dressed in a dark trench coat with double buttons, gets out. He stands at the gate, stares at the house, and tilts his gray homburg. The walk isn’t shoveled because we get so little company in the winter; what would be the point?

  For a minute I think it’s the lawmen we saw on the steps of the courthouse. I remember the months after Blair Mountain, when nine hundred miners were indicted for murder, conspiracy to commit murder, and treason against the state of West Virginia. Those were the days when we laid low, and Nora grew bitter. Though it’s been almost eight years, I still fear they’ll find me.

  “Hallo!” the man calls out. “Is this the midwife’s house?” Bitsy and I are dressed in trousers, tall rubber boots, and knit watch caps so there’s no way he can tell we are women.

  “It’s me. Patience. I’m the midwife. Come up to the house.” I can’t imagine who the guest might be, so we scurry inside to make the place presentable. A tax collector? A preacher come to save my soul? Certainly not a salesman, not in this weather! The stranger stops on the porch to stomp the old snow off his feet and knocks softly. He speaks before he gets into the parlor.

  “I’m J. B. Ott, Prudy’s husband. She said I should come for you. The pains are mounting. I’m new to this. Last time she had a baby, she went to Boone Hospital in Torrington.”

  I look over at the Stenger’s Pharmacy calendar hanging on the nail in the kitchen and see that I’ve circled March 16 as Mrs. Ott’s birth time. She’s two weeks early if this is for real, but it’s still okay. “Did you leave her alone? Is anyone with her?”

  “She’s got two lady friends there and the home health nurse. I told her I’d be back as quick as I could.” He nervously rocks back and forth on his feet, anxious to get going.

  “Is she leaking water?”

  “She didn’t say.”

  “How often are the pains?”

  Mr. Ott looks puzzled. “I don’t really know. Not close yet.”

  Bitsy is already getting the birth satchel. I run upstairs, pull on a dress, and tell her to change too. Then we bundle up and head for the auto.

  “Your girl coming?” Mr. Ott asks as he cranks up the engine.

  “She isn’t my girl,” I start to say but bite my tongue. No use getting hostile. “Bitsy is my birth assistant. She comes to all my deliveries.”

  The ride into town is uneventful; no traffic, no other autos. As we cross the bridge over the Hope, I note that the ice is breaking up. Below us, huge chunks pile up, then fall apart and race each other around rocks that stick up like teeth.

  Fruit Flies

  The Otts’ two-story brick home, with white trim like a gingerbread house, looks inside about how I remember it. White doilies are draped over everything: the arms of the chairs, the back of the sofa, and all the shiny mahogany tables. Though I know the couple has a four-year-old daughter, I don’t see a sign of a child or a toy anywhere, and I imagine she’s been sent away to her grandmother’s.

  Upstairs I hear arguing, and I don’t wait for an invitation. I take the stairs in the front hall two at a time.

  “Hi,” I say pleasantly to Prudy and the other women huddled with her in the master bedroom. Mrs. Wade, who attended one of the births I did with Mrs. Kelly, fancies herself useful but only gets in the way. Priscilla Blum, the town doctor’s wife, tells us she’s Mrs. Ott’s best friend. I’m surprised to see Becky sitting in a rocking chair in the corner, twisting her handkerchief. I smile, but her face is creased with worry and she doesn’t smile back.

  “I tell you, you’d be better off resting! This baby won’t come till after midnight!” exhorts the Wade woman. She looks at me, expecting support, but I’m mum, wanting first to get the lay of the land. Mrs. Wade rolls her eyes.

  “How are you doing?” I ask Prudy. She is wearing a blue chenille bathrobe, and her shoulder-length dark hair is disheveled and stringy.

  “Oh, not good. Not good at all, Patience. I don’t know what to do! There’s never a break! When I lie down, my back hurts. When I stand up, the pains come closer . . . Oh, what should I do? Help me!”

  I shake my head. It’s going to be a long day.

  All afternoon, the female companions hover like fruit flies. I get Prudy to lie down for an abdominal examination, but before I can see how firm her belly gets or determine the baby’s position, she screams and they help her get up. If I suggest she try rocking in the rocking chair, Mrs. Wade and Mrs. Blum want her to lie down on her side. If I show her how to bounce up and down to shake the baby into the best position, they want her to kneel and pray. The heartbeat, from my brief check, is steady, and the
contractions are every six minutes.

  Becky doesn’t get very involved, and I’m not sure what her role is, maybe just moral support, since she saw Prudy at her clinic. I’m sure she’s wondering how she got roped into this. Bitsy too, stays out of the way, sitting in the corner by the fireplace, keeping a low profile, reading her book, Up from Slavery, one of my favorites. Now and then we catch each other’s eyes without expression. We both know that the scene is out of control, but we don’t know what to do about it.

  I’m Charles Lindbergh, flying through the dark without instruments. Prudy’s response to the pains is so exaggerated, she could be close to delivery or two days away. Now that I think of it, I don’t even know for sure if the baby’s head is down.

  Finally I decide I’d better do a vaginal exam. I’ll be outside the law again, and I glance at Becky, knowing she’s aware of the midwifery statute, but the information I can get by doing it is essential.

  “Prudy, I need to do a better examination. If you lie on the bed for a minute and bring down your bloomers, I can tell you, by feeling inside, how your labor’s coming.” She finally agrees, and pulling on my gloves I find the baby’s head low in the pelvis, but she’s only half dilated. As soon as I’m finished, she pops off the bed and begins to wail again.

  “That was horrible! I can’t stand it on my back. I keep seeing myself spread-eagle, strapped on the delivery table, the shiny metal forceps in the doctor’s hands!”

  As the shadows in the room slip across the floor and evening draws near, the situation only gets worse. Prudy’s whining turns into a high-pitched cry, the sound of a dog with its tail in the door. It makes your toes curl. “I can’t do this! I can’t. I won’t! Make it stop, Patience!” The two support ladies keep wiping her brow, their faces gray with worry. Becky has tears in her eyes.

  “I think we need to take her to the hospital,” Mrs. Blum, the physician’s wife, pronounces, her face pale, her bright green eyes brimming with tears. Mrs. Wade nods her agreement.

  I’m surprised when Becky jumps up and concurs with them. “I agree,” she asserts. “There must be something wrong. Disproportion or dystocia.” Fear in the room goes up like a bottle rocket, and I wish the nurse wouldn’t use such big words. I know what she means, but no one else does. Basically she’s concluding that the baby won’t fit and this labor is a waste and a dangerous one.

  “I don’t think it’s stuck,” I counter. “From what I can tell, the back is anterior and the baby’s not very big.”

  “No! I’m not going. I’d rather die!” Prudy screams as her water bag breaks.

  Where’s Mrs. Kelly when I need her? Where’s Mrs. Potts with her calm presence?

  Water Birth

  Observing the puddle of clear fluid on the floor illuminates a way . . .

  “Mrs. Wade, Mrs. Blum, the labor is almost over, and it’s time for Prudy to take a birth bath. She needs to get ready for the delivery.” The two women raise their eyebrows. They’ve never heard of a birth bath before! Becky frowns; she hasn’t heard of a birth bath either. Come to think of it, neither have I.

  “You two go across the hall and get the tub ready. Make the water comfortable but not too hot, then go down to the kitchen and help Becky boil more water and sterilize the linen in the oven.”

  Bitsy puts her book down with a thump and gives me a look. She knows that taking a bath is not part of the usual process; she also knows that the pads in our satchel have been sterilized and wrapped in newspaper for days. She did it herself. I give her a half smile, hoping she’ll understand that this is just a ploy to get the patient calmed down and these meddlesome insects out of my hair.

  The water closet in the Otts’ home is nicer than the MacIntoshes’. There’s a green-tiled floor, with lighter green tiles halfway up the wall, an indoor toilet, a sink, and a very shiny white bathtub with claw feet. When I helped Prudy to the lavatory earlier and admired the tub, she explained that it was her husband’s gift to her when they married five years ago. “It even has a gas water heater,” she told me.

  Now Prudy’s in the tub, warm liquid up to her chest, and I kneel at the side, pouring water over her back. “Is your pain less, Prudy? I haven’t heard you cry for a while.”

  “Yes. It must be the warm water. Here comes another one!” She throws her head back and commands me, “Pour faster! Pour more!” I’m rinsing her with a copper dipper as fast as I can, and this time there’s no screaming, only a low “Muhhhhhhh!”

  Her moan makes me think of Moonlight. I’ve completely forgotten my pregnant cow, and she needs to be fed and watered. I know only one person I can ask for help, and my obligations to him are growing.

  “Bitsy,” I call. She’s still in the bedroom, still lying low, and for the first time I realize why. Her presence here is awkward with the society women of Liberty. Only a few months ago, she served them tea in the MacIntoshes’ parlor.

  “Can you sit with Prudy? Just pour water over her back and shoulders when she has a pain. She’ll tell you what she wants.”

  I trot downstairs, and when I enter the kitchen, all heads go up. Becky, at the sink, half turns. Mr. Ott is there too, and he drags himself from deep between the pages of the Torrington Times, a pack of Lucky Strikes on the table and a lighted cigarette in the corner of his mouth.

  “Prudy’s fine. Bitsy’s staying with her. The bath is relaxing her. Do you have a phone?” I spit this all out in a hurry because I want to get back to my patient.

  “Well, I never,” I hear Mrs. Wade whisper. “Taking a bath in labor, and that nigger girl with her!”

  I steam at the comment but again bite my tongue. No use getting in a fight. It wouldn’t change their minds anyway. Black and white miners and their families have worked together for decades, but these upper-class women probably never had a Negro friend—or a Negro servant, either, in many cases. Most West Virginia families don’t use nannies or maids. At most, they might have a cook and a hired hand, usually someone off of a farm and most likely white.

  Mr. Ott scrapes his chair back and walks me to the telephone in the front hall.

  “I have to get someone to take care of my livestock.” I say this as if I have a whole herd, when really it’s only Moonlight and the chicks. Taking hold of the crank, I twist it three times the way I saw Hester do. A woman’s voice answers.

  “Is this Susie?” I take a guess at the name and apparently get it right. “This is Patience Murphy, the midwife. I’m at Mr. Ott’s home. I need to speak to Daniel Hester, the veterinarian on Salt Lick. I don’t know the number. Can you connect me?”

  “One moment.” There’s a buzzing in the background and then four short rings. The vet finally answers.

  “Hester here. Large and Small Animals.” This makes me smile.

  “Murphy here. Large and Small Women.” I can’t help it. It’s funny.

  “Patience?” I like it that he uses my first name.

  “Sorry. Just a little joke. Listen, Bitsy and I are in Liberty with a patient in labor. The woman, Mrs. Ott, the mayor’s wife, is going to have a baby tonight, and—well, I hate to do this, but you’re the only one I know to ask. Could you go over and feed and water Moonlight? Since she’s with child, I don’t want her to have to go hungry all night.”

  “With child?”

  “You know what I mean. I’ll repay you whatever you want.” I rephrase this. “I mean, I’ll go with you to an emergency call or whatever . . .”

  “Yeah, I can do that. You want me to feed the chickens too?”

  “Would you?”

  An ear-splitting roar comes from upstairs.

  “Patience!” Bitsy hollers. All heads go up, and Mrs. Wade and Mrs. Blum collide in the doorway.

  “Stay!” I hiss at them as I drop the phone on its cord and take the stairs two at a time.

  “Prudy! Don’t push! Tell her to blow, Bitsy!”

  In the bathroom, I grab the woman’s chin. “Prudy, don’t push! We have to get you back in bed!”

  Prudy
whips her head back and forth to say no, her wet hair flying, spraying us with water like one of my beagles just out of the creek. She grabs the side of the tub and bears down again. I hold her chin tighter. “Listen to me, Prudy! Blow like this. Whoo, whoo. Bitsy, my satchel!”

  When the contraction is over, I explain to the mother, as well as her friends, now standing at the lavatory door, what’s happening. “That was an urge to push. You never felt it before because in the hospital you had twilight sleep and then gas as the doctor pulled the baby out. We need to get you out of the tub and back—”

  Before I can finish, Prudy growls again and instinctively pulls her legs back. This is not the prim woman who has lace doilies layered over every surface in the house. Bitsy runs for my gloves, and I struggle into them.

  I know that there’s no way we can get the patient out of the tub, down the hall, and into bed in time. This is her second baby. The train has left the station and is heading downhill, so I just lean over the tub’s side reach into the warm water, put my hands around the infant’s head, and hold on. Within less than a minute, the baby is born. I lift him up out of the warm water, cord still attached, and he cries as soon as he hits the cold air. “Towel?” I request casually, as if this happens all the time. I look up and see Becky, beaming and holding out a clean cloth, all the pain and worry of the last few hours now wiped from her face.

  “My baby. My baby,” Prudy insists, her arms stretched out. What harm can it do? I give the sobbing woman her still wet infant.

  “Keep all of him under the warm water, except his little face.” Becky takes back the towel and gasps at the idea of submerging the baby, but the infant stops screaming and opens one eye to take in his world.

  Bitsy hands me the scissors, and I trim the cord. When I turn to drop the scissors into the sink, I’m surprised to see Mr. Ott in the doorway too, wiping his eyes, gazing at Prudy and their new son. “I love you,” he mouths as his wife looks up. Their eyes fall into each other’s and the rest of us fade, like the blurred images on the edge of an old family photo. “I love you,” he says again, louder.