Minnie O’Toole screamed again, a long piercing wail. Her
eyes bulged and her round face shone as red as hot coals. “I’m going to die,”
she whimpered when the pain subsided. “The babe and I are both going to die.”
She grabbed my hand and squeezed.
I wiped the pretty young woman’s brow with a cool cloth.
“Thee isn't going to die, Minnie. Look at me.” I gazed into her eyes and willed
her to listen. “Thee is a healthy nineteen and thy body is meant to give birth.
Exactly like every woman anywhere in the world. I’m thy midwife and I’m here to
help get this baby out. Now sit up a bit more.” I leaned over, hooked my hands
under her armpits, and raised her further up on her pillows against the plain
wooden headboard.
She had been in hard labor for hours, and was becoming
weak from the effort. I had trudged through the remnants of the Great Blizzard
to reach her. It had been scarcely three weeks since the storm buried us and
the rest of New England in four feet of cold blowing snow, the worst storm we’d
had in this year of 1888 or any year in prior memory.
But her birth canal still wasn’t fully open. I had finally
sent word, asking Minnie’s landlord to call on his new telephone, to my doctor
friend, David Dodge, whom I sometimes consulted during difficult births. The
midwife I’d apprenticed with, Orpha Perkins, was now too elderly to help.
I heard David enter Minnie’s small flat. “I'm glad thee is
here,” I said to him as he walked into the bedroom. He set down a black bag,
removed his coat, and rolled up his shirtsleeves. To Minnie I said,
“We will be
back directly. Try to rest between contractions.” I led David back out into the
hall.
“I’m always glad to see you,
Rose Carroll.” He smiled at me and winked, an unruly lock of his wavy
dark hair falling onto his brow. “How’s my favorite
Quaker, with your thees and your thys?”
I blushed. We had been
courting in recent months, but this was no time for that. “I am well.
Now, her name is Minnie O’Toole. Her labor started
yesterday morning, but the pains began coming a minute apart about four hours
ago.” I opened my pocket watch, which I’d pinned to my left bosom so I could
easily check it. “Yes, it’s now six in the morning. They became more intense at
about two.”
“And the opening?”
“Still has about a thumb’s width to go. The baby’s
heartbeat is fine, although the mother is tiring. She's neither too young nor
too old, so it isn’t her age slowing the labor. Perhaps a fear of supporting
the babe holds her back. She has no husband and won't tell me who the father
is.”
David raised dark eyebrows over deep blue eyes.
I ignored his expression. I'm a midwife. As part of my
calling, and because I'm a member of the Society of Friends, I serve rich and
poor alike, and I don't refuse to care for women who land in circumstances
outside what society expects.
Another scream resounded from the next room. “That cursed
man,” she wailed.
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