Naked in the Winter Wind

by Dani Haviland

“I have a horrible backache. It feels like cramps, only much worse. It comes and goes, but it’s tolerable. I’m still having those contractions in front, too, but they’re much stronger than they’ve been in the last month.”

  Sarah put her hand on my belly. “When you have your next contraction, I’m going to put my finger inside your cervix and see if it’s dilated and effaced.”

  “Sure, go for it,” I said to her then raised my voice. “Hey, Jody, is this when I’m supposed to start yelling?”

  “Ye can yell whenever ye want, but when ye do, we’re headin’ fer the barn, and takin’ the whisky with us.” Sarah and the men all laughed at Jody’s remark—and it wasn’t a nervous laugh either, I was glad to note.

  “I’ll make you a deal then—you can’t drink whisky until I scream. Then you can keep drinking until the babies are here, okay?”

  “I think we can make that sacrifice, don’t you, men?” Julian said. “All right, we’ll just sit here playing cards without the benefit of drink while you do your job. But hurry, will you?”

  Julian’s time spent with this family and with José had loosened up his staid British demeanor. He was evolving into a laid-back, happy American, a wonderful transformation that I was happy to be partly responsible for.

  “Jody, you can knit some booties for the babies now that we have yarn,” I called out from behind the screen. “Ouch! Sarah, what are you doing? And no, that is not yelling, guys!”

  “I had to wait for a contraction before I could check for dilation. You’re doing fine, but I don’t want you out walking more than twenty minutes at a time.” She pulled my sarong back down, and stood up. “Men, can I get an escort for the lady in waiting.”

  “My turn,” said Julian. “I could use some fresh air.”

  ***41 Delivery

  June 21, 1781

  Julian was almost smiling as we left the other members of our ‘unrelated-by-blood-but-as-close-as-possible-without-wearing-the-same-clothes’ family. It wasn’t a full grin of glee, nor the stifled smirk at a silly joke that he sported. No, I glanced over and realized what it was. He was staring at the sky, one side of his full bottom lip pulled back into the near-perfect smile a person wears when contented with life. I flashed on the first time I had ever seen him: an angry, bound and gagged British officer, kidnapped and contained in a dirty gunnysack. Who would have thought we’d be here, like this, less than six months later?

  We walked together, arm in arm, in a comfortable silence. Well, he was walking and I was waddling. “I’ll be glad when this is over,” I said. “At least I won’t be the size of an elephant, and can tie my shoes again.”

  “Have you ever seen an elephant?” Julian asked, wide-eyed at the possibility. “I’ve read about them, but have never met anyone who has actually seen one.”

  “Oh, yes, we had them in zoos; everything from exotic insects to elephants, and even killer whales were held in huge artificial tanks…er…ponds. Visitors could see animals from all over the world—polar bears, camels, anacondas, ostriches. I don’t remember what town I was in, or how old I was, but I’m positive I’ve seen elephants, and all of those other animals. They impressed me on a deep emotional level, I guess. Most big towns had some sort of zoo. I think you call them zoological gardens. The groundskeepers had to grow special plants to feed some of the animals: bamboo for pandas from China, and eucalyptus for koala bears from Australia.”

  “I’ve seen the zoological gardens in Paris, but they didn’t have the animals you named when I was there. I’ve never heard of most of them. And, is Australia the same as Terra Australis, the land Captain James Cook explored recently?”

  I stumbled, and Julian caught me before I completely lost my balance. Ever the gentleman, he didn’t make me feel like the klutz I knew I had become.

  “Perhaps we can talk about this later, when you’re feeling better,” he said. “You seem to being getting a bit breathless. I believe we should return you to your bed.”

  “Thanks, I think you’re right.” I realized that I was practically panting, and let him guide me toward the house.

  “Oh, no—hold on a sec.” A major contraction was having its way with me. It took all of my concentration to keep from yelping—and there was no way I could walk through it. Two more of those paralyzing pauses hit me before we got inside. My labor had increased to a more intense level, so it was desert tortoise pace back to the house for us.

  “Sarah, I think the lady is in need of your attention,” Julian announced as we walked through the door. He turned to me and said with mock formality, “Madam, I thank you for accompanying me on a stroll. Our conversation was, as always, most engaging. I look forward to hearing more about those strange and unusual animals you have seen.”

  “All right, sweet sister, it’s time to check you again,” Sarah said, her hand reaching out for mine.

  “Ooh, wait,” I gasped and hunched over, immediately breathing in and out with a slow, even pattern. It wasn’t helping much. This contraction was almost unbearable, but I wasn’t going to scream, no matter how much it hurt. I started huffing and puffing next, but it kept getting worse. I resorted to panting to avoid pure panic. The pain abated and finally ended. I exhaled in relief, then scurried like a fat basset hound with a soup bone to my labor bed before the next one hit.

  “Oh, it’s like that, is it?” Sarah asked. “You’re progressing rather quickly. Have you timed your contractions?”

  “If you mean how long between the start of one to the start of another, they’re about three minutes apart. I don’t know how long the contractions themselves are. I do know that I can’t talk or walk through them, though.”

  Sarah helped me settle in as I arranged my makeshift sarong around me, loosening the fabric so I could cover or expose myself, depending on who was looking in on me: her or one of the men. I inched myself upright with my elbows—I had lost all abdominal strength two months ago—and pulled my knees up in anticipation of the next examination.

  I sucked in a deep breath and attempted to ignore the world around me, hoping I could create oblivion, to block all thoughts and sensations, especially the pain that was imminent with her poking around. Meditating on nothingness failed. Over and over, like a needle stuck in a groove on an old vinyl record, I kept wondering how and why I was here?

  How and why was I here?

  How and why was I here?

  What a heck of a time to get philosophical, woman, I thought. Considering that I couldn’t do much except breathe and think, I guessed it was as good a time as any to reflect on the question of the centuries that I had been ignoring for nearly eight months: how and why was I here?

  I tried not to care about Ian. We hadn’t been together very long before he left me. I had been here in this time longer without him than with him. I had Sarah and the men to keep me company, and I knew they were all fond of me. I loved Wallace dearly, and he was going to be my husband and the father to these babies soon, but dang it, I wanted the biological father here, too!

  After I punched him in the face—and oh, how I wanted to do that—I might be big-hearted enough to let him share in the joy of the birth of my babies. I couldn’t find myself generous enough to consider them his babies, or even our babies. And if he were here, he could darned well bear some of the pain, too. I wanted to grab his bony hand during a contraction and squeeze it until it turned blue.

  He knew I was pregnant when he dumped me on his aunt and uncle. I wasn’t paying attention to what was happening with my body, but he had seen all the symptoms before. He didn’t tell me much about his first wife, but I knew she hadn’t been able to carry his children to term. That had to be why he left—he couldn’t stand the thought of losing another child. But this was me and my body; he couldn’t have known how I would have handled a pregnancy.

  “Pfffftt—Men.”

  “Are you okay?” asked Sarah.

  “Oh, just thinking about men,” I said casually. I changed my attitude, lowered my voice, and asked, “D
o you think Ian abandoned me because he thought that this wasn’t his child? Hmph—that couldn’t be—he knew better. Maybe because I was pregnant, he figured that another one of his children was going to die, and he left because he couldn’t stand to be around when, not if, it happened?”

  Sarah and I had discussed Ian leaving quite a while back, but for some stupid reason, I couldn’t stop thinking about him. I hadn’t thought about him this much in the last three months.

  “Uh, I don’t know, that’s possible…no probable…no, hell, how would I know? He’s just being a jerk.” Sarah frowned at me, exasperated. I watched as the wide eyes of realization overtook her scowl, “Oh, now I understand what you meant when you said, men.”

  We both knew that our men could hear us, but neither one of us cared. I made a gesture, elbow bent and fist to mouth with neck tipped back—like I was drinking whisky—and grinned broadly. I knew they wanted to drink, but they had given their word that they wouldn’t if I didn’t holler. I had only had the urge to scream once, and had stifled that one, along with the groans that had tried to escape. Their pain wasn’t nearly as bad as mine was, but my misery loved their company.

  I heard the chairs scoot across the floor; the men were going outside. If the ladies’ conversation was heading toward male bashing, they didn’t want to be around, and I didn’t blame them. I smelled the brusqueness of Julian’s cigar. He was smoking a bit prematurely; cigar smoking was supposed to come after the baby was born.

  Sarah put her hand on my belly. I could see the strong, leathery, but delicate hand rise up with the contraction before I could feel it. I started my slow, steady breathing right away. If I started the routine too late, I felt more than uncomfortable—I felt helpless.

  I experienced a flash memory. My uncontrolled labor pains reminded me of falling down that hill eight—or was it nine?—months ago. When that event occurred, I had nothing to grab onto, no way to steady myself, and had known an intense pain was imminent because I hadn’t paid attention to what I was doing. Strange, this was the first clear memory of that day. I was certain more pain was coming with this situation, too, but I was going to use all the help offered me from my new family.

  Sarah moved the light toward the foot of the chaise and pushed up my sarong. She looked right at me, then closed her eyes in concentration as she slipped her hand inside of me.

  “Oh, poop,” I grunted. The pain of her invasive examination was much worse than the cramping of a normal contraction. I giggled at my non-cursing expletive, and then tried to get back into my pain-reducing breathing regimen. I panted, huffed, and puffed. After what seemed like forever, I was finally back to the normal, tolerable discomfort level of a bloated multi-birth, late-stage pregnancy, and able to speak again.

  “Phew! That was a big one. Having you poke around there doesn’t help, either.”

  “That’s true, but I have to see how you’re coming along. I would say you’re at seven centimeters and totally effaced. One of the babies is down in the birth canal, so it won’t be too long. Hmmm, something smells good. Jesus! The dinner!”

  Sarah rushed to the fireplace, grabbed a kitchen cloth to use as a potholder, and pulled out the clay pot with the pheasant in it. She started to put it down on the kitchen table, but there was no room: it was loaded with her medicine box and supplies for the delivery. She turned to the small table, but it had the basin and ewer on it. She mumbled and snorted, her hands burning through the thin damp cloth that held the searing clay pot, looking for an empty spot to set it down. She two-stepped about the small area, did a quick pirouette, and clumsily dropped it four inches onto the hearth.

  “Aaaagggghhhh!” Sarah hadn’t said one discernible word as she danced her hot-pot shuffle, but made up for it with her one syllable shriek once it was out of her hands.

  Jody ran in from outside, knocking Wallace out of the way in the process, his eyes only for his wife. “What happened? Jesus, Sarah, talk to me,” he demanded, his voice breaking with fear.

  Sarah was now sitting on her haunches, rocking back and forth, glassy-eyed, her hands cradled at her chest, breathing hard with an occasional mumbled curse word escaping as she tried to recover from her grasp of the vessel that was hot as hell in a forest fire.

  “She burned her hands on the clay pot. Sarah, put your hands over the basin, and Jody, pour some cold water over them,” I said. Suddenly, I was the medic in charge. “Sarah, keep them wet. Cold water is the best thing for a burn. Jody, if that water isn’t cold, get some more. The colder the better, and leave them in there for at least ten minutes. Uh, oh…here’s another one…”

  Another contraction hit, and I was huffing and puffing, almost from the start. I blanked out everyone’s presence to concentrate on inhaling and exhaling. As soon as it was over, I called to Wallace. “I need your help. I want you to put your hand on my belly. When you feel it start to get hard with a contraction, I want you to squeeze my hand. In the meantime, I am going to try and sleep.”

  “Uh, all right. Can you do that?”

  “If I’m asleep, it means I’m totally relaxed, and that eases the pains. So I’m going to sleep between the contractions. When you squeeze my hand to let me know one’s coming, I’ll wake up enough to do the breathing. Hopefully I can stay on top of them, but won’t have to be fully awake to do it. I don’t know how I know about this, but I believe it’s the best way to go. Sleeping’s an easy way to make the time go faster, too.”

  “Would you like a drink of water first?” he asked.

  “Thanks, I could use one.” With the mention of water, I realized that my voice was hoarse, and my mouth dry, from all the deep breathing. I took a small sip. I didn’t want to have to use the chamber pot again. As it was, I was wet from the amniotic fluid constantly dribbling out. I couldn’t seem to keep a cloth between my legs to staunch the flow, and didn’t want to ask one of the men to help diaper me. Childbirthing was inconvenient in so many ways.

  I didn’t know how badly Sarah’s hands were burned—it would probably be a while before she would be able to use them—but I wasn’t worried. I had an overwhelming sense of calm that must have been supernatural. Whatever it was, I embraced it. I knew everything was going to be fine.

  I was asleep before I knew it, and had no idea how long it had been when I awoke in a surreal fog. Wallace was next to me, faithfully squeezing my hand so I—we—could handle the contractions together. Then, all of a sudden, I was wide-awake. Life was crystal clear. It was as if bright lights had been brought into the room. It was I who was radiant, though. I knew it was time; the adrenaline had kicked in.

  Julian, Jody, and Sarah were sound asleep, sitting up. Julian was in the straight-back chair, his head nearly resting on his right shoulder in what looked to be an incredibly uncomfortable angle for his neck. Jody had his arm wrapped around Sarah, enveloping her protectively as they leaned as one against the cool side of the hearth. She wore the unmistakable frown of pain on her face. Her hands, still wrapped in damp cloths, rested in her lap.

  Wallace was half-asleep, but still doing his part in the laboring process. His left hand was on my belly, and when my womb contracted, his right hand would squeeze mine. I shifted my body, and he awoke all the way. “Is there something I can get for you?” he asked, suddenly bright-eyed. His adrenaline had kicked in, too.

  Just then, another contraction came. It caught both of us off guard. I was floundering in desperation. I started to hyperventilate, sucking in air rapidly to keep from screaming. Two hours past forever, or so it seemed, the pain was finally over.

  “Wallace, I want you to grab one foot in each hand.” He wrapped his large hands around them. “Use your thumb to press in under my soles, yes, right there. Now back off, but when the next contraction comes, press there.”

  For some reason, I knew about the pressure points on feet for childbirth pains. I wondered, was I a nurse? I was knowledgeable about many medical procedures and pharmaceuticals, but I had told Sarah that what I knew was common know
ledge in my time.

  I felt Wallace squeeze my hand, and then reach for my feet, pressing his thumbs to the sweet spots. Another contraction hit; they were practically on top of each other now. When the last one was over, a big smile lit up my face. “Sarah, it’s showtime!” I called out in a lilting tone.

  Sarah tried to stand, then halted, letting Jody get up first so he could help her. She grimaced as she walked uncertainly toward me, her hands held close to her chest. “Evie, I’m sorry, but I think I’m going to have to let the men take over for me. Would that be okay?”

  I started to answer, but Wallace squeezed my hand, and came around to my feet to press those magical points that took away nearly half of the labor pang. I put up one finger to Sarah as in, “wait a minute.” After the contraction was over, I gave my final cleansing breath and said, “You know that there’s no modesty in a maternity ward. Jody has assisted in many a birth with horses and other critters—the mechanics are all about the same so... Uh, oh; here comes another one.”

  Wallace had squeezed my hand as I was speaking. He seemed to be more in tune with my body than I was. As soon as the contraction was over, I said, “Sarah, can I use the chamber pot? I feel like I have to go number two.”

  “Number two?” asked Jody as he leaned over Sarah’s shoulder to see what was going on.

  “Never mind, Jody. Evie, your body wants to push the baby out. That’s what you’re feeling. Scoot up and get ready. Jody, you’ll have to wash your hands and check inside her to see if she’s fully dilated. She’s supposed to be at ten centimeters, that’s four inches. If she pushes too soon, well, let’s just say we don’t want that to happen. Here, Julian, step over here and hold the light. Wallace, keep doing what you’re doing. And everybody pray.”

  Jody looked down at his hands. “I dinna ken if I can do this, Sarah. My hands are verra big and dinna move as they should. The lass is a lot smaller than a mare, too. Are ye sure it wouldna be better fer Julian to check her and have me hold the lamp? He has the small hands.”