Hidden Mercies

by Serena B. Miller

  Then again, neither did she.

  chapter EIGHTEEN

  In Claire Shetler’s eyes, Dorcas was little more than a child. At eighteen, her body was not yet completely developed, her bones not properly set. And yet she was having a baby. And it was coming soon.

  “Make it stop!” Dorcas cried. “It hurts!”

  She tried to coax the girl from the fetal position that, in spite of her big belly, she was trying to curl herself into.

  “Dorcas,” Claire soothed, “you can do this.”

  The contraction ceased long enough for her to get Dorcas to scoot off the bed Abel had set up in the kitchen and walk a few steps. Then it hit again, and she bent over, calling out for her mother.

  Claire wished with all her heart that Dorcas’s mother was here to encourage her, but Lilly Beachy had gone to her Maker only two weeks earlier—while giving birth. This had terrified Dorcas beyond reason.

  Claire thanked God that she had not been the midwife at that birth. It was every midwife’s nightmare, losing a patient. So far, all of the babies she had delivered had lived, as had their mothers.

  Abel stood beside his wife’s head, a frightened look in his eyes. It was obvious that the young man wanted to bolt but knew the manly thing to do was to stay in that room. He was only twenty, but looked younger. She gave him points for standing his ground, even if he was completely useless.

  “Mommi,” the girl cried as another wave of contractions washed over her. “I want Mommi.”

  “Please do something!” Abel pleaded. “I do not believe my wife can stand this much longer.”

  The young husband’s terror had grown with each hour as his wife’s labor intensified.

  “First babies are seldom easy,” Claire said. “Be patient. Trust the Lord. The child will come.”

  “It hurts!” Dorcas pleaded with her. “I want it to stop.”

  Not for the first time, she wished she could take the pain of a young mother upon herself. At least she understood the birthing process.

  Claire knew what it felt like to be young and scared while bringing a baby into the world. She had been only seventeen when her eldest was born and she well remembered her own terror at the strange pains ripping through her body.

  It worried her that Dorcas was losing heart and control. This labor had been particularly intense. Although the Swartzentruber Amish were a stoic bunch, Claire could tell that her young client was close to going into a complete panic.

  Claire used her calmest and most reassuring midwife voice. “Dorcas, you are doing so gut. You can do this.”

  “You are doing so gut.” Abel echoed Claire’s words while patting his wife’s shoulder over and over. “You can do this.”

  His nervous, repetitious patting grated on his wife’s nerves.

  “Stop that!” Dorcas snapped at him.

  Claire hid a smile at the startled look on Abel’s face as he jerked his hand away. Under normal circumstances, this sweet, obedient Amish wife would never use such an angry tone when speaking to her husband, but these were not normal circumstances. She was going through the transition period of labor, those final minutes when the baby entered the birth canal. It tended to make even the most docile woman a bit testy.

  “Do you think the water has cooled enough?” Claire asked the young father. “I want to get her into the birthing tub. It will help relieve some of the pain.”

  He had been given the job of heating enough buckets of water on the couple’s woodstove to fill the portable birthing pool that she had brought with her. Unfortunately, he had been a little overzealous, overfilling the tub with too hot water. She’d been waiting these few minutes for the water to cool.

  Had she been in an Old Order home, it would have been so much easier to prepare for this moment. She would have had access to hot and cold water straight from the faucet. Delivering a baby in a birthing pool in a Swartzentruber household where there was no running water presented a much greater challenge. The task of drawing water from a well, carrying it to the woodstove, and getting it hot was time-consuming. It did, however, give the husband something practical to do.

  Abel tested the temperature of the water. “I think it is ready.”

  Looking at his callused fingers, Claire felt doubtful about his ability to judge the temperature. She dipped her elbow in to check. “It is ready. You did a fine job. Now help me get her into the water.”

  The contractions were coming so quickly, there didn’t seem to be enough time between them for Dorcas to shuffle the few steps to the birthing pool. Abel swept his wife up in his arms and gently slipped her into the water. Even pregnant, the girl weighed so little in the young farmer’s arms that he didn’t so much as grunt. Her loose, white nightgown covered her just well enough for Claire to do what was needed without embarrassing the father.

  The contraction eased, and Dorcas’s eyes widened as she settled onto the small, soft seat built into the bottom of the birthing pool. The water reached just above her waist.

  “The warmth will ease some of your pain,” Claire explained. “And the water will soften your skin so that it will be more pliable when the baby comes. You will be holding that sweet babe in your arms soon.”

  There had been a time when Claire had not believed the words of an Englisch midwife who told her that being in warm water eased the pain of childbirth. Then one of her more experienced mothers expressed a willingness to try it. The mother had climbed into a bathtub filled with warm water and later remarked that this baby had been delivered with much less pain than her other eight children.

  Claire immediately ordered a birthing pool from one of her catalogs and had been encouraging her clients to use the birthing pool ever since.

  Grace had expressed surprise that Claire would use such a modern invention as a portable birthing pool. This had greatly annoyed Claire, although she tried to hide it. The fact that she was Amish did not mean she would withhold good ideas that would give her clients comfort! It was not as though warm water was some sort of new technology!

  Dorcas went into a contraction so strong that it left her gasping when it was over. Abel stood aside, his big fists dangling helplessly at his side, a terrified look in his eyes. Claire had seen that look in expectant fathers’ faces before. It was the expression of a man on the verge of bolting. The poor boy was trembling with the effort it took him to remain in the room.

  “Oh, this feels so gut!” Dorcas sighed after another contraction had passed and she relaxed back into the comfort of the warm water.

  “You are doing wunderbar,” Claire said. “The baby will be here soon.”

  She wished she had a nickel for every time she had used those exact words to a laboring mother. Encouragement and praise, she had found, were needed every bit as much as having someone present to catch the baby.

  Only a few seconds passed before yet another teeth-clenching contraction rippled through Dorcas’s body. She grabbed her husband’s rough hand and gripped it so tightly that Claire saw him wince. Swartzentruber women were not weaklings.

  “We are almost finished, little one,” Claire soothed. “You are very courageous. Your maam would be so proud of you!”

  Dorcas’s eyes were grateful. “Do you truly think so?”

  “Oh, yes. I—”

  At that moment, Dorcas obeyed the deep primal call within her and began to push. Claire had not told her do so. There was no need for her to give Dorcas instructions at this point. Something within the girl’s body was forcing her to push.

  Claire never ceased to marvel at the intricate clockwork the Lord had installed within a woman’s body. The act of childbirth was a miraculous symphony of natural chemistry.

  She had heard that there were highly educated Englisch people who actually believed that this process had evolved spontaneously, with no Creator involved. She found this puzzling. The delicate mechanisms and hormones necessary to bring new life into the world were so intricate and a work of such genius that she thought perhaps the people
who believed this might have spent a little too much time getting educated.

  She glanced at the kitchen table, where she had laid out all of her supplies. Everything was in place. Scissors, a handheld scale, a small oxygen tank in case the baby needed a whiff, clamps for the umbilical cord. She had a device to suction the phlegm from its throat, but she seldom used it. In most cases she’d found it unnecessary. Her experience was that babies who could expel the phlegm naturally with the help of a crook of her finger nursed more quickly and strongly.

  As she waited for nature to take its course, she prayed for the baby and for this young couple just starting out in life.

  The contraction passed. Dorcas lay back, panting from the effort, and then she began to strain again, so hard that a high keening sound came from her mouth. Oh this girl was a strong one! For her slight build, their Dorcas was a fighter!

  “I’m thirsty,” Dorcas gasped as the contraction eased.

  The young husband practically fell over his own feet in his hurry to get water for his wife.

  Abel might be young, but Claire liked him. He had stayed in this room with his laboring wife all this time, leaving only once to care for their livestock, when many men would have run for the hills.

  Claire hoped that remembering his wife’s pain would give him the discipline to see that she did not give birth again too soon! Swartzentruber families tended to have more children than the other Amish sects. It was not uncommon for Swartzentrubers to have twelve children or more. Only last month, she had delivered a Swartzentruber mother’s eighteenth child. She did not have ironclad numbers, but she would estimate that the more moderate Old Order families averaged around seven children per family.

  Abel carried in a homemade tin cup dripping with cold water from the well. She noticed that the cup had been made from the bottom half of a tin can upon which someone had soldered a handle. The Old Order Amish were excellent stewards of their own resources, but by necessity, the Swartzentruber Amish were even more so.

  “Just a few sips.” Claire wished she could have ice chips for the girl, but a Swartzentruber house did not have such things as refrigerators or freezers. “Now is not a good time to fill your belly with water.”

  Dorcas obeyed. Then another contraction began. She dropped the cup and began to strain again.

  “Get behind her, Abel,” Claire instructed, “and support her back.”

  Abel did not hesitate. He put his strong arms around his wife, providing a living wall into which she could lean while pushing their baby out into the world.

  And then came the moment for which Claire lived and breathed—that holy moment when a precious new little soul came into the world, straight from the heart of God.

  “You have a son!” Claire lifted the baby from the water. “A healthy little boy.”

  “Praise Gott!” the husband exclaimed.

  Dorcas relaxed against her husband’s chest, panting from the effort.

  Claire’s hands flew as she checked the time, cleared the baby’s throat with her finger, clamped and cut the umbilical cord, and then laid the infant high on Dorcas’s belly. She would weigh him later. Her eyes softened when she saw the husband tentatively stroke the newborn’s cheek while the red-faced infant squalled.

  “A son.” There was awe in his voice. “We have a son.”

  Ach. That was as it should be. She had no respect for husbands who treated this moment as though it were nothing.

  “Thank you for this great gift, my wife.”

  Dorcas smiled up at her husband, relaxed and happy now that it was over. Her face was aglow with the look of triumph that every woman wears after successfully bringing new life into the world.

  It was an intimate moment, one that did not need to be shared with an outsider. While they acquainted themselves with their first child, Claire gave them a measure of privacy by going to the woodstove and taking a little more time than necessary pulling out one of the receiving blankets she had placed in the stove’s warming oven.

  She glanced around the tidy kitchen, giving thanks to God that this young couple had been given the chance to purchase a small farm where they could nurture this child. Too many Amish families were being forced off the land because of the high cost. She knew that at least half of the young people from this particular church had moved away in search of more affordable property.

  She thanked God that Abel’s grandparents were wise and generous people. Lilly had told her that Bess and Leroy were selling this homestead to Abel and Dorcas for barely a fourth of its value.

  Had Bess and Leroy sold their property for what it was worth, they would be considered well-off by the world’s standards, but the Amish had always measured worth by a very different yardstick. Many parents and grandparents put more value on having their children living close, with the ability to support themselves at least partially from the land, than on putting “paper money” in the bank.

  She respected Leroy and Bess for having sacrificed a small mountain of “paper money” for the sake of this young couple and for this precious life that had just fought his way into the world.

  She brought the blanket, lifted the infant off its mother’s belly, and wrapped it in the blanket’s warmth. She would bathe the baby later.

  “Here.” She handed the tiny, snug package to Abel.

  Then came the other moment she loved. The baby, quieted by the secure tightness and warmth of the blanket, gazed up at his father for the first time, and Abel, so young that his husband beard was still thin and scraggly, gazed down into his little son’s wide-open eyes. It seemed to her as though the newborn was memorizing his father’s face.

  Still gazing at his father, the baby worked his arm out from beneath the blanket and noisily began to suck his fist.

  “He is a hungry one,” the new father said, proudly.

  There was always a moment when, after a successful birth, she felt a sort of euphoria—a lightness and happiness over having used her skill and knowledge to help a mother come safely through the most intense moment of a woman’s life.

  For the first time since meeting Tom, she found herself wondering if there was any chance that this was how he felt when he flew his helicopter to protect people like Grace who went onto battlefields to save the lives of wounded soldiers.

  If so, it would be a hard thing to walk away. It had certainly broken her heart when Abraham forbade her to do this holy work.

  As Claire kneaded Dorcas’s slack belly to help expel the afterbirth, she noticed Abel surreptitiously wiping away tears. Oh, this was very good! That boy would be a loving father . . . like his father before him, and his grandfather before him.

  Claire felt the weight of her forty-four years as she realized that counting the new babe, she had known four generations of this family.

  As Claire prepared to help Dorcas learn how to nurse her sweet-smelling little boy, Abel left to once again tend his livestock. She smiled when she glanced out the window and saw the new father striding out to the barn with such a spring to his step that his boots were barely touching the ground!

  Dorcas was a lucky girl—only eighteen, with a farm, a house, a healthy son, and a good, steady husband with love in his heart for both her and his child. In Claire’s opinion, a better life was not possible on this earth.

  A very small part of her—a part she would have been ashamed to admit existed—felt a sharp stab of envy.

  If Matthew had lived, she would have been like Dorcas, with a fine, young husband, a precious baby boy, and the homestead that Matthew had rented for them.

  There would have been no shame to endure. Instead, she would have had memories of a joyous wedding and a man who truly loved her. It would have been a much easier life.

  Who would she have become had Matthew not died?

  For one thing, she would not be the kind of woman who, for Levi’s sake, had to put away her grief long enough to convince herself to marry Abraham. At ten, Levi needed a man to lead him into adulthood. He did not need t
o learn how to cook and clean and sew—the skills she knew. He needed to learn how to plow and plant and harvest, like Abraham, who had been a skilled and canny farmer. Abraham could teach her son the intricacies of mending fences and harnesses. He could explain the breeding of cattle and rotation of crops.

  The fact that Abraham was thirty-three and still unmarried should have warned her that there was a reason other women had turned down his proposals.

  She had married for her son’s sake—and, truth be known, because she wanted more children—thinking she could learn to love a frugal farmer who owned his own farm and went to church regularly. There had been little courtship. He had been the only one who asked—and she had accepted.

  Six weeks after their marriage, she had heard the whipping in the barn. The sound of Levi’s sobs—such a good little boy always, so quick to try to please—made her want to take a pitchfork and run it through her new husband.

  Instead, she waited until Abraham came out of the barn, and humbly asked what Levi’s great sin had been to deserve such a punishment. Abraham’s answer? The little boy had wept over the fact that his hands were cut and bleeding from trying to learn the skill of basket weaving from his new stepfather.

  What kind of woman would she be now, if she had not been forced to fight not just to love her new husband but for the discipline to not hate him?

  Levi was a quick child. He learned how to avoid his stepfather’s anger, and she helped him know how. She learned that the more subservient she became, the less Abraham felt the need to take his frustration with her out on her child. He became the best-fed man in their church, with the cleanest clothes and the tidiest house. These things kept him reasonably happy.

  The whippings grew infrequent.

  She often wondered what Grace would think if she knew that most of Claire’s expertise as a cook and homemaker had been developed out of sheer desperation to keep Abraham content enough to keep his temper down.