Once a Midwife

by Patricia Harman

  This wakes me up. “Oh, Dan, what happened?”

  “It was the Bishop brothers again. Before I got there, Mr. Dresher called in all his neighbors to help, and the Bishop farm is right next door. The three brothers came, but they’d been drinking.”

  “I thought the one they called Beef was the mean one, the one that died in the wildfire.”

  “Oh, Beef was half-crazy. Remember he was the one beating his dead horse, all the while blaming me for its death. He was part of the KKK too, but apparently the rest of them are just as nuts, especially when they’re liquored up. They used to be bootleggers, and I think moonshine must have rotted their brains.”

  “So what started the fight?”

  “Apparently, word is out that I refused to be on the draft board. Aran Bishop is a big-shot air warden now and he got in my face and asked me if I’m some kind of traitor. He knows I speak German, because I occasionally converse with Mr. Dresher in German.

  “Then his brother, George Bishop, came in saying I must be a coward. None of it made any sense, and before you get all riled up, Patience, let it go. They only punched me three or four times before I got in a few licks, then Mrs. Dresher went into her house and got a shotgun and blasted it up in the air in the yard, and everyone went home.”

  “Oh, Daniel! It will be all over Union County!”

  “It’s okay. I expected something like this would eventually happen. Sooner or later, I’ll have to defend my beliefs, I just didn’t think it would be so soon.”

  “I guess I hadn’t thought about it. Generally, you’re so respected. Is this going to be like in the Great War, where vigilantes accuse people of being enemy sympathizers and then drive them out of town?”

  Daniel gives me a hug. “Nah. The Bishop men are just nuts. I probably shouldn’t have even told you about the fight, but I thought I might have a black eye in the morning. If anyone asks, I’m going to tell them the horse kicked me.”

  “Are you warm enough now?”

  “Mmmmmm,” Daniel moans. “Deliciously warm.” He pulls me closer. Within minutes he sleeps, but my eyes are wide open.

  March 2, 1942

  Raggedy Ann

  Today, there was another problem and they had to close the woolen mill, so when I received a call from Earl Spraggs that his wife, Daisy, was in labor, I asked Bitsy if she’d like to go with me.

  “Dan will watch the kids, and Mr. Spraggs is back working in the coal mines and is usually generous,” I told her. “We might get paid five or ten dollars, or maybe not. You never can tell. Midwives are sometimes considered to be less than medical professionals, just nice ladies who like to deliver babies for fun.”

  “The trouble is,” she responded with a wide grin as she pulled on her jacket, “most of the time it is fun. Still, especially in hard times, it’s nice to get something . . . a few dollars, a ham, or a wagonload of split firewood.”

  Now the two of us are sitting in the Spraggses’ tidy kitchen drinking tea while Daisy naps upstairs. I’ve been dying to have a little time alone with Bitsy to talk. (It’s Daisy’s fourth baby, and though she’s in early labor, I like to arrive in plenty of time just in case she goes fast.)

  “So let’s get back to your story. Tell me more about Paris and Katherine and Willie. I checked on Daisy a few minutes ago; she’s sound asleep and her kids are all down the road with their father and grandfather at the old man’s farm. So, dish it out. What happened next? Last I heard, it was 1940, the Germans were marching toward Paris, and you were on your way back to the U.S.A.”

  “Well, let’s see . . .” Bitsy takes a sip of tea.

  There’s a noise from the woman upstairs. “Daisy, you okay?” I call. Bitsy stands and takes the stairs to the bedroom two at a time. I limp along behind, but our patient appears to only moan in her sleep.

  “Is everything ready for the delivery? Maybe she’ll sleep through the whole thing,” I joke. “She seems awfully tired.”

  “Everything we need is laid out on the dresser. I’ll heat up some water and bring it up.” My assistant trots back down the steps. Before the Dreshers’ cow kicked me, I took the stairs like she does, two at a time. Now I move slowly.

  Across the hall from the mother and father’s bedroom is a second room for the older kids, a boy and two girls. The two double beds are made up neatly with colorful quilts, and I decide it won’t hurt to rest for a while.

  “Come on, Bitsy. Let’s lie down. I always tell new mothers, ‘When the baby sleeps, the mama must sleep.’ It should be the same for midwives: If the patient sleeps, the midwife should sleep.” Bitsy agrees and takes the other bed. Within minutes I’m dreaming.

  It’s summer and I rest on the bank of the Hope River, looking up at the big puffy white clouds. There are wild roses and daisies. Somewhere downstream I can hear children playing.

  When I open my eyes a few minutes later, I remember that I’m at the Spraggses’ home. Holy cow! I’m supposed to be attending a woman in labor! When I look at my pocket watch, I’m shocked to see I’ve been out for over an hour. My assistant is still sawing logs on the other bed.

  “Bitsy,” I whisper. “Bitsy!” I stand and give her shoulder a shake. “Wake up. Look outside, it’s already getting dark and Daisy needs to have a baby. I’m going to see if I can get her moving.”

  Across the hall in Daisy’s room, I find the patient still snoring. Her blond bob is matted against her face and one hand droops over the side of the bed. Below on the floor is a large brown bottle. PAREGORIC: OPIUM CAMPHORATED TINCTURE, it says on the label in small print. The bottle is half empty.

  “What in Sam Hill!” I say out loud. “Daisy Spraggs!” I try to get her up but she’s as heavy as a sack of sand. Her eyelids flutter like a butterfly’s wings and close again over her green eyes. “Bitsy, come help! Daisy’s in some sort of stupor. I think she’s been tipping back some medicine.”

  Bitsy wanders through the bedroom door smoothing her dress and yawning. “That was a nice nap.” Then she sees the bottle and frowns. “What’s Paregoric?”

  “It’s a medicinal remedy for pain or diarrhea and it’s available in any pharmacy without a physician’s note. People give it to fretful children or babies with colic. They use it for bad coughs. Some doctors recommend it for arthritis or severe menstrual pain, but its main ingredients are opium and alcohol.”

  Bitsy picks up the bottle and stares at it. “I know about opium, and heroin too. The high-flyers in Paris were crazy about it. It was the rage at Bricktop’s . . . I tried it once. It wasn’t for me.” (I’m shocked but I try not to show it. I thought heroin was just for gangsters and hoods in the Bowery of New York or the slums of Chicago.)

  “I’ll get some cold water,” Bitsy says. “Maybe if we wash her face, she’ll come around.”

  Sitting down on the edge of the bed, I study our patient. It’s hard to imagine she’s had three children. She’s only twenty-five, but her once-pretty face is slack and worn. I wonder why she’s been taking the patent medicine; painful false labor, perhaps, or maybe diarrhea?

  “Come on, Daisy. Come on. Time to wake up!” Her pulse is regular, but very slow at sixty beats per minute. I roll her over. She weighs only as much as one of Daniel’s newborn calves and she’s nine months pregnant! Way too skinny.

  The unborn baby’s heartbeat is 120. That’s slow too, but still in the normal range. Finally, I get her blood pressure. Also low, 100/50.

  Thinking back, I remember that Daisy came only two times for her pregnancy visits at the Baby Cabin and never participated in the Pregnant Ladies Society. This was not what I prefer, but she’d delivered her other three babies at home without difficulty and I didn’t make a fuss about it.

  Now here she lies, out cold.

  Rise and Shine

  Bitsy reenters the room carrying warm water in a pot and a cool washrag in the other hand. She pulls up a wooden stool and cups Daisy’s head.

  “Time to rise and shine,” she says, and I smile, remembering how my mother
used to call me with those words on cold, dark winter mornings back in Deerfield, my mother who died of consumption when I was twelve. When I think of it, it makes my heart sad; there’s still no cure for TB.

  “Come on. Come on!” Bitsy washes the woman’s face a little less gently and then drops her head on the pillow. “She’s really blotto!”

  “What shall we do?” I wonder out loud. “She might not even be in labor. Maybe I better do a vaginal exam.”

  “You know, it’s illegal under the West Virginia Midwife Statute of 1925,” Bitsy teases as she hands me my sterilized red rubber gloves.

  “I know, smarty,” I return. “But Daisy won’t tell.”

  Gently, I touch my patient’s inner thigh, speaking to her as if she could hear me. “Okay, now, Daisy, I’m going to check you to see how your labor is advancing.”

  I insert two fingers in her vagina and am surprised to feel a hard round ball, low in the pelvis. Feeling for the cervix, I discover it’s gone. “She’s completely dilated!” I look over at Bitsy with surprise.

  “We have to get her up to walk,” Bitsy decides.

  “How can we? She’s a Raggedy Ann doll.”

  “Come on. Let’s try. She can’t weigh very much.”

  “Okay, okay,” I agree.

  Together, we drag the woman’s legs over the side of the bed and let them hang down. Daisy moans. “Hoist her up,” says my assistant. Though Bitsy is half my size, she’s as strong as a cougar. I shake my head to get ready for the effort, as we each sling one of Daisy’s arms over our shoulders and begin to march back and forth across the room . . . only Daisy’s not marching . . . She stumbles. She moans again and tries to lie down.

  “Daisy, wake up. You’re about to have a baby!” Bitsy yells in her ear, but Daisy slides to the floor like a drunk.

  “Hello!” comes a man’s voice from downstairs. “It’s Mr. Spraggs! How’s my woman coming? Is anything wrong? The other little ones only took a few hours.”

  “One minute, Mr. Spraggs. I’ll be right down,” I holler.

  “Can you hold her?” I whisper to Bitsy.

  Downstairs, I find the parlor empty. Mr. Spraggs is out on the porch lighting a cigarette. He’s a big man, over six feet with wide shoulders and a thick neck. His eyes shift back and forth with worry and he blows out the smoke. “Is everything okay? Should I get her in the truck and head for the hospital in Torrington? I know this pregnancy hasn’t been easy on her, not with her back trouble and all.”

  “Her back trouble? I didn’t know. Right now she’s sleeping, but the thing is, Mr. Spraggs, we can’t get her to wake up. Has she been taking the Paregoric for pain?”

  “Oh, quite regular. She gets it in Delmont. I doubt she could manage the house, the garden, and our kids without it. I’d help her more, but I have the sheep and cattle and I work every day in the coal mine.”

  “Well, the thing is, the opium in the medication has impeded the labor and made her too sleepy. We’re walking her around now and if she could just push, the baby would be out in a jiffy.”

  “Opium!” He looks toward the house. “She never said it had opium in it. That’s bad stuff, right?”

  “Well, it’s strong stuff and it can be addicting if you take it often. Our problem now is just getting her to come to and get the baby out.”

  “Is there something I can do? I know this is women’s business.”

  “Maybe you could just sit in your truck and we’ll call you if we can think of anything.” Upstairs I hear footsteps.

  “Mmmmmmmmmgh.” There’s a groan.

  I take the steps as fast as I can. “Bitsy?” The patient is down on her hands and knees with the side of her face resting on the bed. This time her eyes are open.

  “Something’s coming,” she says like a happy drunk. “Can I have some more of my tonic?”

  “No, Daisy, not now. Your baby needs to be born. It wants to be born.”

  “Okay.” She smiles again. “That’s fine. What should I do?”

  “Well, for heaven’s sake, can you push?” Bitsy exclaims.

  “Do I have to?”

  “Yes!” we both say together.

  “Okay.” The woman gathers herself and makes one mighty lunge, head down like a bull charging a red flag. “Uggggggggggh!”

  “One push. That’s all it took,” Bitsy crows. “One push. Nice work!”

  The cord is still attached and pulsing. Daisy smiles in contentment, but the baby’s not crying. I give him a rub and blow on his belly to make him gasp. The breath of life, Mrs. Kelly called it. He opens his eyes, but as the moments go by, instead of turning pink, he turns gray. Now the cord is thin and flat, no oxygen coming from the mother to the infant. “Come on, kid, time to rise and shine!”

  Bitsy is already reaching for the sterile scissors. “Shall I cut the limp cord? It’s not doing anything to help now, is it?”

  “Yes, cut. We’ve got to get this kid breathing. I know he’s in there. He opened his eyes and looked right at me, but now he’s gone back to sleep.” That must be it, I think. The Paregoric. The opiate. As soon as the cord is cut, I lay the baby on the bed and begin to breathe for it.

  Mrs. Kelly was the first person I saw do this. Three very gentle puffs in the infant’s mouth usually gets the baby going. I wait a few seconds. When he doesn’t gasp or cry, I repeat the procedure. Puff. Puff. Puff.

  “Wake up, Daisy! Wake up. Your baby needs you,” Bitsy yells. “Wake up and talk to your baby.”

  We hear heavy footsteps on the stairs and the bedroom door flies back. Bitsy is holding the mother’s head and shouting in her face and I’m kneeling like a druid priestess over his newborn son breathing into his mouth.

  “What the hell!” he shouts.

  “It’s the Paregoric,” I say between puffs and Bitsy finishes the explanation.

  “Your wife took too much medicine and now the baby’s sleepy and won’t breathe. He has a heartbeat, but Patience is trying to give him some air.”

  “Won’t breathe, will he!” The man grabs his infant and turns toward the door.

  “No! Mr. Spraggs!” I rush after him, but he’s way ahead of me, running down the stairs. What’s he going to do! The miner heads for the kitchen sink where a pan of cold dishwater sits ready for dishes and he dips the child in. Dip one. Dip two.

  “Sir! You mustn’t. You’re chilling the infant.”

  Dip three. Up and down the baby goes in the father’s big hands. Dip four . . . and the infant lets out a wail and not just a little one. He’s mad! Who woke me up from my nice sleep? he says. Mad. Mad. Mad!

  March 2, 1942

  Called to the home of Daisy and Earl Spraggs for Daisy’s fourth delivery. The labor was very unusual. The mother slept through most of it. After five hours, we finally got her to wake up and the baby was born with one push. It turned out the patient had been taking large amounts of Paregoric and was extremely sedated.

  The baby was sedated too. He didn’t breathe. I gave him several puffs of air and blew on his stomach to get him to gasp, but nothing worked until the father grabbed him and dunked him in cold water. Then the child howled right off. (Daniel told me later that farmers sometimes do this when a newborn lamb doesn’t breathe. They just dunk the lamb in the livestock water trough and it usually works.)

  Franklin Delano Spraggs, named after President Roosevelt, was born at 6:34 P.M.

  6 pounds, 4 ounces. Bitsy and I were given ten greenback dollars, which we shared.

  16

  March 4, 1942

  Opium Eater

  Hello?” I answer the phone, waving to Mira to turn the radio down. “War Time Blues” by Sonny Boy Williamson is playing and she sings along. “Now, it ain’t no use you worryin’. That ain’t goin’ to help you none. If you can’t fly no airplane, maybe you’ll carry a gun!”

  Since I can’t think of a woman due at this time, I imagine this will be a vet call.

  “This the midwife?” a man’s voice asks.

  “Yes . .
.”

  “Earl Spraggs here. Our baby is poorly. I wonder if you’d come.”

  “How do you mean, poorly?”

  “Jittery, like he’s got a Mexican jumping bean in his diaper and also he cries all the time. He cried so hard last night, none of us got any sleep. It might be a bellyache.”

  “Is he passing stool?”

  “It’s watery like.” This doesn’t sound good. Maybe I can get Becky to come with me if she isn’t at the CCC camp.

  “Well, I guess I could drive over this afternoon. Anything else wrong?”

  “Daisy is poorly too. I took away the Paregoric and now she says her womb hurts.”

  I suck in a deep breath. “Okay, I’ll be coming, but not until after the midday meal.”

  Daniel comes in with two buckets of milk. “What’s up?”

  “Daisy and Earl Spraggs’s baby boy is ill. She’s bottle feeding formula, so it might be a reaction to that.”

  “Mother’s milk is best.” He pours himself a cup of coffee and warms his hands on the mug.

  “You saying that to impress me?”

  “No. Every farmer and vet knows that if a piglet is deprived of its mother’s colostrum for the first eight hours of life, it’s almost guaranteed to become sick and die. It’s the same with newborn horses, cats, and dogs.

  “Most mammals are born without any antibodies, or only the tiniest amounts in their blood. Without the antibodies, they can’t fight infection. No reason human babies would be different.”

  “Well, I tried to convince her with the last two babies and she refused, so I guess she doesn’t care, or just doesn’t understand it, but I love it when you talk all scientific. Did you know that? You’re so smart. It’s like Casanova whispering words of love in Italian.”

  Daniel raises one eyebrow. “I could tell you about the new DDT that’s just been invented. It’s going to save lives. We could discuss the discovery upstairs. . . .”

  “Sorry, bud. Duty calls. I’m going to see if Becky can go out with me to check the baby.”

  An hour later, Becky and I turn onto the Spraggses’ road. When we step on the porch we can hear a radio turned up high and a baby wailing almost as loud. “We interrupt this program,” the announcer says, as we knock at the door, “to bring you an update on the fighting in Port Moresby, New Guinea, the last defensive post held by the Allies to protect Australia. The Japanese have landed. I repeat, the Japanese have landed and have apparently taken over the island. More to come on the evening news.”