A Midwife in Amish Country by Kim Woodard Osterholzer

Author:Kim Woodard Osterholzer
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781621577553
Publisher: Regnery Publishing
Published: 2018-04-16T04:00:00+00:00

Chapter

TWENTY

AGAIN, THE TELEPHONE RANG. “KIM?”

“Kris!”

“So—why do you think I’m calling?”

Squeals and laughter erupted, and tears began to flow.

The children, piqued by the noise, ran in from the living room to dance about my legs.

“What, Mama? What, Mama? What Mama?”

“Aunt Kris is going to have a baby!”

“A baby! A baby! Yay!”

And the news was doubly sweet since, the winter before, she’d suffered a miscarriage. She’d gotten pregnant again, according to plan—she wanted to have her babies in the summertime so she could give birth to them with me in Michigan—and she was due on my birthday. Then she’d called on New Year’s Eve to say she’d begun to bleed a little. Her midwife came out the next day and confirmed the child had died. Over the next few days, labor began. She gave birth to a tiny, silent person, complete with face and hands and feet, and she and Ron buried the little thing among the roots of a mulberry tree sheltering their yard.

Never had I felt so far away from my sister, my bosom friend. I remember pressing my forehead against the windowpane in my bathroom, and the harsh feel of the cold glass mirrored the sense of desolation that began to settle over me like a fog rolling in from the lowlands. I grieved both the loss of the child, and my inability to be there with my sister through it.

By the time Kris and Ron conceived again, my sorrow had subsided to a muted ache, and the news there was a new child revived and assuaged that sorrow all at the same time.

The challenge with the subsequent pregnancy was the baby was due in March, and so would have to be born in Arizona. “Kim, do you think you can come? I can’t imagine having my baby without you!”

I went to work straightaway on Brent. My first order of business was to convince him to let me go for the whole five weeks Kris could safely birth at home.

“FIVE weeks, Kim? You can’t be serious.”

But of course, I was dead serious.

Next, I had to convince him it would be perfectly fine for the kids and me to travel out by bus.

“By BUS? No way. I’ve seen the folks who get on and off those buses. Take a plane.”

“But, Brent, do you know what three airline tickets would cost? We could never afford it in a million years! Hon, I’ll be careful, you know I will. I’ll keep my money in my shoe, and we won’t talk to anyone. And I’ll take the pepper spray!”

“It’s gotta be a long trip, though. How long is it? I know you already know.”

Yes! He’s weakening!

“Forty-eight hours, but that’s not as long as it takes us to get from Michigan to Mexico—I mean, geesh! That trip takes five whole days!”

“Um, five days—getting off to sleep nights.”

“Well, yeah. Still, only two days! Plus, it’s not like I’d be doing the driving.”

The next day I was on the telephone with Greyhound.

On the third Thursday in February, I packed our bags and the next afternoon, Brent drove us to the bus station.

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