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I seemed to be spiraling into a bottomless pit.

Must get midwife. Now that there seemed to be no doubt of a mis-reading or statistical aberration, I looked in Mary’s pain-wracked face and told her the news.

But, Edna lived six miles away and had no phone.

“You can get Naomi,” she said quietly. “Then Naomi can stay with me while you get Edna.” Naomi…Naomi was Edna’s apprentice and Mr. Miller’s oldest daughter (who had just returned from a long visit with friends in another part of the country). She lived just over the hill. I couldn’t believe Mary’s brilliance.

“Come fast,” Mary whispered.

As if I needed the advice. Once in the car, adrenaline took over. My foot went to the floor. I spun out the drive, around the corner, and up the gravel lane trailing a cloud of dust. The vehicle seemed to go airborne as I crested the second hill. There was a clunk, and I coasted forward until I sat right in front of the Millers’ place. The engine was dead. I tried restarting it, but nothing. I vaulted from the vehicle to rouse the house.

As Naomi got her things together, the boys prepared a buggy.

By the time we got back to the cottage, I felt as though three lifetimes had passed. I ran into the bedroom and found, with unspeakable relief, a living, breathing Mary. No baby yet. In my absence, wonder of wonders, things seemed to have stabilized. Mary was calmer and the contractions somewhat milder.

Naomi asked me to heat up some water, and when I returned she announced that I should fetch Edna.

But I had no car.

I ran across the street to the “English” neighbors and pressed the bell. In a minute I had the keys to a borrowed Oldsmobile and was careering down the highway, having learned nothing from my previous mishap. At one bend in the road I almost had a head-on. I roused Edna and drove a little slower on the way back.

The next eight hours were, in truth, our expedition’s greatest single test of physical and psychological endurance. Edna, Naomi, and I sat on the bed trying to alleviate Mary’s pain. I continued with the breathing exercises and squeezed her arms. The midwives rubbed her legs and feet. A third midwife came to relieve the others, and they rotated sleeping. With each contraction Mary roused from a deathlike slumber as if giving her last gasp.

Childbirth is sometimes depicted as a heartwarming phenomenon of nature, a fuzzy family-friendly photo opportunity. For me it was like trying desperately to revive someone, over and over and over, from a death swoon. Mary is curiously amnesiac about this stage of the ordeal. She tried to bring it to mind later but failed. It was like a bad dream that began to fade as soon as she woke up.

By the time Easter services were in full tilt through the county, Mary’s contractions had slacked off to five-minute spacings. Dilation was almost complete. The baby’s head was molding to the pelvic opening.

Since we now knew the doctor personally and since there had been no progress in several hours, Edna asked us if we wanted to call him for a second opinion. There appeared to be no present danger, but all things considered, a friendly corroboration would be helpful.

It was too late to reach him at home. By now he would probably be in the middle of an Easter service. Naomi went across the street to call, and twenty minutes later an expensive-looking white car pulled in the driveway. Almost as soon as he came, Dr. Brewster was going out the door again. “Patience, patience,” he said. He laughed when I told him what the birth manual had said. The contractions didn’t fit the normal pattern, he admitted. But there was no normal pattern.

It was seven hours later, just after six p.m. Something wondrous began to happen. Mary sensed the same thing and, breathing with a second wind, steeled her nerves. She took to the final exertion with athletic prowess. With each push I saw more of the crown of the baby’s head. In the aura of the dusky light that was streaming through the windows,