The Midwife

Once upon a time, on this day in history, I had my seventh baby.

The day before, at thirty-six weeks gestation, I had gotten a stomach bug which led to dehydration which put me into labor.  At the hospital they gave me IV fluids which effectively stopped the labor.

My midwife came in and said, “I think you’re going to be fine, but I’d like you to stay in the hospital overnight just to be safe.”

I agreed.  She left, telling  me that she would see me in the morning.

About two hours later, I went into hard labor.  My husband rang the nurse.

“Yes?” she said, after poking her head in the door.

“She’s having some pretty hard contractions,”  my husband said.

“Let me get the midwife on call,” the nurse told us, and disappeared.

I lost all track of time.  Labor is like that.  The next thing I knew a midwife I had never met before was standing at the end of my bed with a clipboard in her hand. “What’s going on?” she asked in a crisp, professional, I-never-met-you-before manner.

“I think the baby is coming,” I squeezed out.

“Well, let me just ask you a few questions here,” she said, smiling down at me over her clipboard while still standing at the foot of my bed. “Can you tell me about your other pregnancies?  How did your labors go for those?”

“I feel like I need to push,” I said.  The whole thing seemed surreal.

She smiled that professional smile.  ”You just do what your body is telling you to do,” she said, turning her eyes back to the clipboard in her hand.

I swear to God, this is the thought I had at that moment.  MY BODY IS TELLING ME TO KICK THAT CLIPBOARD OUT OF YOUR HANDS SO YOU’LL CHECK ME!

Fortunately, the nurse and my husband both piped in.

“I think you need to check her,” one of them said.

“I think she’s about to have a baby,” the other one agreed.

She checked me.  I pushed. Shortly after that (like less than 10 minutes) baby Grace was born into this world.

And we all rejoiced.

Even the midwife.

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