Coop_ A Year of Poultry, Pigs, and Parenting - Michael Perry [60]
“If I’m at four centimeters, I don’t even want to know,” says Anneliese, wrapping herself in a towel and walking into the house.
I kneel beside Anneliese, holding her hand as Leah performs the examination. Leah’s eyebrows shoot up and her eyes widen. I’m startled, thinking something is wrong. “You’re at six or seven,” says Leah. “Looks like you’re on your way!” Anneliese beams, and yet at the same time I see an edge of determination set in, as if she is saying, OK—let’s go here.
I call Mills. He’s puttering in his wood shop. Looks like this is it, I tell him. “I’m on my way,” he says.
After that, I go into what can most charitably be described as a cotton-headed sleepwalk. The feeling in the pit of my stomach is like unrisen bread dough. Not dread, exactly, but reality. I see Mom’s car in the driveway. Perhaps as a means of avoidance, I become obsessed with preparing the birthing tub. I remove the cover and stow it. Return to check the water temperature. Decide the level is a little low and go down to get a bucket of water from the laundry room. With the midwife and my mother at her elbow, Anneliese moves upstairs.
Mills arrives. He is is wearing camo pants, black Crocs, and a ball cap. It’s a relief to see a scruffy male. And it doesn’t hurt to think of those six babies he’s delivered under all conditions. He has a batch of newspapers and several copies of the Tradin’ Post under one arm and his Big Gulp mug of water in hand. “Go ahead and hang out in the office,” I tell him. “If I there’s trouble, I’ll shoot off a flare.” I’m hoping my bravado doesn’t sound as tinny to him as it does to me.
Back in the house I join Amy in the bedroom beside Anneliese. My mother is at the foot of the bed and Donna is across the room at the window. Now the contractions have become painful. Anneliese is quiet, but her face contorts with focus as she breathes through them. It helps when I press against her lower back just like the nice lady taught us downstairs in the living room the day we got the giggles. Between contractions Anneliese smiles at Amy and speaks soothingly. Amy smiles bravely, but I sense she is ready to crumple and run.
When the water breaks right at the peak of the next contraction, it catches Anneliese off guard. “Oh!” she exclaims. Frightened by the rush of fluid and the pitch of her mother’s voice, Amy begins to cry. Donna scoops her up and takes her downstairs. I follow, and taking Amy out on the deck, I hold her in my arms and explain what has happened. I tell her what it means that the water broke, and remind her of the times we talked about it before, and that it is good that it has happened. I tell her that it is very hard for Mommy to give birth, but that Mommy is very happy. She rubs at her eyes, and nods, and hugs my neck, and I tell her it’s OK if she would rather do something else for a while. She nods again, and when I am back upstairs I hear the clang of the empty steel trailer bouncing behind the four-wheeler as Donna takes Amy out to gather firewood.
I check back with Anneliese, then take the bucket back downstairs into the laundry room and begin filling it again. I’m running the water over my hand, adjusting the temperature, when the apprentice pokes her head through the door. “I really think you need to get up there,” she says. I follow obediently with my pail of water.
Anneliese has gotten more uncomfortable and has decided to move to the tub. Leah and I help her in. A terrific contraction catches her with one foot in and one foot out, and we’re hung up for a while. “I don’t think I can make it in,” Anneliese says, and I get panicky visions of the baby dropping out right there. Then the contraction wanes and she settles into the tub. I scoot (I have now cranked it up a notch) into the closet to change into swimming trunks in case I have to crawl in the tub. Then I come