The Amish Midwife by Mindy Starns Clark, Leslie Gould

matter-of-factly. I wondered if perhaps it was the mom who had decided Tonya shouldn’t have an epidural. Maybe she wanted her to feel all the pain.
    The OB nurse came in, and I slipped across the hall to Jane’s room. She and her husband were watching the news. “How’s it going in here?” I parked myself in front of the computer and read the nurse’s notes. Thanks to the epidural, her contractions had slowed.
    “Doing great,” Jane answered.
    Her husband and I chatted for a minute, and then just as I was getting ready to leave, a scream jolted the night.
    “Be back soon.” I walked quickly to the door and scurried across the hall. Tonya was pushing with all her might.
    The OB nurse held one of her legs and her mom the other. I snapped on clean gloves as the nurse grinned and said, “I thought that holler would bring you running.”
    The baby’s head crowned with the next contraction. “Tonya, you’re amazing. Another push or two and—” I stopped myself from saying
your baby
. “And the baby will be here.”
    It took only one more push for an absolutely perfect little girl to slip into my hands. She looked up at me with wise old eyes and thenhiccupped before I grabbed the suction. She hiccupped again and then began to whimper. She was tiny—probably just more than six pounds—but good sized for being three weeks early.
    “Time of birth is 11:57 p.m.,” the nurse said.
    I grabbed a warm receiving blanket and swaddled her.
Baby number 245
.
    Tonya collapsed back against the pillows as tears raced down her face, pulling streams of black mascara after them. “I want to hold her,” she said. Her arms reached out toward me.

F IVE
    I searched Tammy’s face and she nodded. I leaned forward with the baby, slipping her into the teenager’s hands. Tonya pulled the little girl to her chest. “You’re so beautiful,” she said. How many new mothers had I seen say exactly that? Even at fifteen, even still a girl, she instinctually knew what to do. Tonya’s mom hovered above the two, her hands clasped under her chin. “So beautiful,” the girl said again and then she began to sob. The nurse and I moved toward the door to give them space.
    I still needed to deliver the placenta. The nurse needed to weigh the baby. And there was the matter of what to do with the newborn. Probably put her in a warm isolette in the nursery after the nurse cleaned her up. That would leave Tonya and her mom alone to grieve.
    “Are the adoptive parents here?” I whispered to the nurse.
    She shook her head.
    Thank goodness
. I waited a few more minutes and then said, “Tonya, how about if you pass the baby to your mom? We have a little bit more work to do.”
    Their hands became entangled, and a second later the baby was in the new grandmother’s arms. As I concentrated on caring for Tonya, I kept track of Tammy out of the corner of my eye. She was entranced with hernew granddaughter, swaying gently, making eye contact, smiling, saying sweet nothings. She was in her own world, just the baby and her. It wasn’t going to be easy for either one of them to let her go. I felt a pang for the hopeful adoptive parents. I thought of Mama and Dad, and for the first time wondered what the night I was born was like for them, if they were already in Pennsylvania or if they had waited to come. Why hadn’t I ever asked Dad about those details? If I had, would he have told me?
    The nurse directed Tammy over to the in-room isolette to weigh the baby. “Six pounds four ounces,” she said. Tonya’s mom held her hand on the baby’s chest as the nurse cleaned her.
    As I finished up, I thought of my own birth grandmother, wondering if she had been as enamored with me.
    I covered Tonya with a warm blanket and lowered the bed to a reclining position. In a second her mother stood beside her, holding the baby again. The resemblance between the three was incredible. All had the same delicate nose and heart-shaped face. Each had a little hill of a