The Amish Midwife - By Mindy Starns Clark Page 0,70
came over the crest of the hill opposite him, and he darted back into his lane just in front of us. A half mile later he pulled over to the side of the road, and we passed by as he waved again.
I accelerated. “How long have you known Ezra?”
“Since we were kids. Mom would visit his grandma.” She paused. “They used to all be friends.”
“Aren’t they still?”
“Sort of. I guess. Not like they used to be.”
“They seemed friendly enough last week when we were there for Hannah’s appointment.”
Ella nodded. “We just don’t see them much anymore, but I used to play with Ezra when we were little. He’s two years older.”
Marta turned off toward her cottage, and Ella and I continued on to Lancaster. I asked if her mother pulled her out of school very often to help with a birth, and she said no. Esther had asked if she could come to take care of Simon though, because she didn’t have any family to help.
When we arrived at Esther’s, she called out that the door was unlocked. We entered and found her stooping at her desk, her hands on her keyboard. David was in the kitchen, and Simon was sitting on the floor of the living room, wailing. When he saw Ella he stopped for a minute, gulped a breath of air, and then started again.
“He’s been this way all day,” Esther said, straightening up. She nodded toward her computer screen. “I have a paper I need to finish editing. It’s due tomorrow.”
I wondered if we’d come too early; if Marta had overreacted out of her devotion to Esther and her family. The woman didn’t look as though she was in labor, let alone ready to give birth.
David strolled into the living room, stepping over the screaming Simon. He shook my hand and said, “So you will end up delivering our baby after all.” He smiled widely.
“It looks that way,” I said, glancing at Esther. “How far apart are the contractions?” Marta had said three minutes.
Esther held up a hand. Was she having one now? A minute later she said, “I quit keeping track.” She turned back toward her computer. “I just have a few more minutes on this, and then I can send it off.”
Ella was down on the floor trying to talk to Simon. He crawled away from her and then plopped down on the far side of the room, next to the bathroom door.
“He’s been out of sorts since last evening,” David said. “Since Esther’s labor started.”
“Last evening?” I stole a glance at her again. She was most likely standing because she couldn’t sit.
“Around eight,” David said. “And she only got a few hours of sleep. She worked on that paper most of the night.”
Esther was statue still again, and I wondered if she were having another contraction. She’d already been in labor for fifteen hours. “Show me the bedroom,” I said to David. Esther wasn’t going to have the baby until she sent the paper off, so she might as well get it done. I would set up my supplies. I hoped that once she was ready, the birth would go quickly.
By the time she joined us in the bedroom, she was nine centimeters dilated and fully effaced. David rubbed her back while Ella fed Simon lunch and then put him down for a nap. But he didn’t sleep. He stood in his crib, screaming for his mother. He knew something was up, knew in some instinctual way that his life was about to change. Finally, Esther asked Ella to fetch him and rock him in the living room, which she did until he fell asleep, and then she slipped him back into his crib.
Esther and David’s little girl arrived at 1:47 p.m. They named her Caroline—a perfect name for a perfect baby. Baby number 258. She had her mother’s chin, her father’s nose, and her brother’s forehead. When Simon awoke, Ella carried him in and he patted his little sister’s head and then clung to his mother, his chubby hands entangled in her clean pink nightgown.
Caroline took it all in. Simon. Esther. David. The woman—me—hovering nearby. And the girl—Ella—whose face was filled with awe. I asked Esther if I could take a photo of her family. She agreed, asking Ella to squeeze in too. After I’d captured the image, she asked if I would email her the photo. She would send it home to her mother and sisters.